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NATIONAL 



EVOLUTION 




by J. Anthony Starke 



ADVANCE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

WORLD BUILDING .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. NEW YORK 



PRICE FIFTY CENTS POSTPAID 



NATIONAL 
EVOLUTION 



BY 



J. ANTHONY STARKE 






NEW YORK: 

ADVANCE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1908 



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Copyright, 1908 
By 

Advance Publishing Company 
New York 



All rights reserved 



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INDEX OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A.— PRESENT NATIONAL CONDITIONS: 

I. — Internal Conditions 9 

II. — External Contrasts 23 

III. — The Moral Issue. — Political Ideals. 27 

B.— INTRODUCTORY EDUCATIONAL 
ARTICLES: 

(a) The Making of the Republic. — Self- 

Government of a People 36 

(b) Liberty, Equality, Manhood Suf- 

frage, Citizenship 45 

(c) The Constitution. — The Law 54 

(d) Authority and Dignity in Govern- 

ment. — Stability and Order. — Anar- 
chy. — Socialism 62 

(e) Nationality and Patriotism. — Indi- 

vidualism. — The Practical and Nat- 
ural Ideal 72 

(f) Aristocracy vs. Democracy. — Political 

and Social Castes. — Rule of the 
People j6 

(g) Modern Idea of the State. — Property 

and Taxation. — Details of Adminis- 
tration 83 

3 



4 INDEX OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

C— THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL RE- 
FORMS: 

I. — The Presidency and Vice-Presiden- 
cy. — The Term of Office, and Re- 
Eligibility. — Manner of Elec- 
tion. — Pension. — Age-Qualifica- 
tion 89 

II. — The U. S. Senator and Congressman. 
— Governors and Other State Of- 
ficers. — The Terms of Office. — 
Age-Qualifications. — Re-Eligibil- 
ity, and Manner of Election 99 

III. — The Corelation of the Three 
Branches of the Government. — 
Presidential Powers and Initia- 
tive, — The U. S. Supreme Court 
Federal and State Judicial 
Powers. — The Civil Service. — 
State Rights vs. Centralization. .110 
IV. — Universal Suffrage. — White Native 
and Alien Franchise. — Colored 
Races Franchise, Native and 
Alien. — Woman Suffrage, Native 
and Alien, White and Colored. — 
Immigration. — Modern Tenden- 
cies 121 

D.— SUMMARY OF THE REFORM PRO- 
GRAM 146 

E.— POLEMICAL: 

The Presidential Campaign of 1908, — 
"Shall the People Rule?" 1^2 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

A preface is usually written to afford the reader a 
general conception of the author's objects and of the 
spirit of his impulse. This author's object is to help 
in the political upbuilding of the country ; he belongs 
to the growing phalanx of Constitutional Reformers. 
The spirit of his impulse is the firm conviction that 
the political plan of the republic of the united states 
of America, in its broad founding upon human sym- 
pathy, personal liberty and equal justice to all, repre- 
sents the highest endeavor in the art of government 
yet attempted. Not alone for our own happiness and 
glory as a people, but for the benefit of all mankind 
our form of free popular government and institutions 
"must and shall be preserved." 

It is plainly implied in the above preamble that full 
achievement cannot, as yet, be written upon our flag. 
Every government is in its nature a development ; 
nothing human springs to life in perfect form and with 
a guaranty of permanence. Republics have been and 
gone in ancient Greece and Rome and in modern Italy ; 
they exhibited the highest type of democratic virtue, 
political and material success. They all met their 
pitfalls and went to destruction. Our own government, 
is built upon an improved democratic plan and power- 
ful initial impulse. Our solemn task is to develop this 
propitious beginning in the practice, to avoid the 



B AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

rocks of danger to its life and to carry it to perfect and 
permanent success. 

In this course we have reached a present result that 
is far from what the aim has been. We have drifted 
into errors, our political vision has become clouded. 
We are allowing ourselves to be fettered by the letter 
of the law from misunderstanding of its true spirit. 
Hence, our plan of government, so grand and perfect 
in its general conception, is proving inadequate to meet 
the changed conditions of modern life and the general 
advance in political and sociological thought. This 
book has been written to present these conditions and 
their remedies as they appear to the Author to the 
earnest consideration* of the American People. 

It is quite true that much diffidence exists in regard 
to changing the Fundamental Law of the land, but we 
have arrived at a crisis in our National life which re- 
quires radical action. The day has come for active 
Public Agitation of necessary Constitutional reform. 
The Author makes no claim to any great originality; 
he has merely gathered together in a systematic pres- 
entation the best information and thought on the 
subject. The plan of the work consits in: 

A. — A short statement of present National con- 
ditions. 

B. — A series of educational articles on politico- 
economical subjects. 

C. — The detailed development of the proposed Con- 
stitutional reforms. 

D. — A summary of the reform program. 

E. — A polemical article on the Presidential campaign 
of 1908. The book answers the question : "Shall the 
People rule?" 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 7 

There are many who look with distrust at any 
proposition to reform the body politic ; they envelop 
themselves in self-sufficient pride and refuse to see or 
hear. To them the reformer is either a pessimist or a 
professional agitator who needlessly alarms the people. 
But political and social evils are too self-evident with 
us to be ignored or disposed of in that way. The 
appeal is to the intelligent and patriotic citizens who 
clearly see these shortcomings and their dangers, and 
who earnestly desire to see our Republic perfected and 
preserved. May w r e succeed by united effort to hand 
down to posterity a Republic which shall be an endur- 
ing work of politic wisdom, a truly free, just and 
beneficent democratic government. 

The Author. 



A.— PRESENT NATIONAL CONDITIONS 

L— INTERNAL CONDITIONS 

Synopsis : 

(a) Present public agitation. 

(b) Defects in Federal politics and administration; 
the protective tariff; growing distrust of popular suf- 
frage. 

(c) Faults in State and City government; the Fran- 
chise responsible. 

(d) The Currency question. 

(e) Defects in the administration of Justice. 

(f) The Labor question, and Socialism. 

(g) Further conclusions on popular suffrage and Re- 
publican government ; effect of temperament. 

(a) PRESENT PUBLIC AGITATION 

That we are at the beginning of a New National 
Era is evidenced on all sides. New times have 
brought new problems and, also, new conceptions of 
our political fabric and life. Old ideals and standards 
are making place for new ones. The administrative 
practices of the government and the application of the 
Constitution are being "stretched" to meet these new 
conditions. With prosperity and National expansion 
many evils have crept in, all leading to a loosening of 
moral fibre, to a relaxation of confidence in the Repub- 
lic, to a doubt as to whether we are entirely right. 
Thus we have, in the course of the last ten or twelve 

9 



lo NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

years, reached a condition of much political unrest, of 
anxiety even for the National future. This is shown 
by the unceasing discussion of questions involving the 
Constitution and the practical working of the Govern- 
ment. Of quite particular moment is the high charac- 
ter of the debaters; they are Representatives and 
Senators, Judges of high Courts, men of large affairs. 
Governors of States, the President himself and, not 
least, the leaders of thought in education, ethics and 
religion. 

The causes which have brought about this state of 
dissatisfaction are two-fold : internal conditions and 
external contrasts. The internal conditions are 
those sins and defects of our political life which are 
familiar to all and a standing reproach to us. They are 
the corruption in office; the incompetent electorate; the 
trickery and purchase which accompany elections ; the 
ogre of bossism ; the pernicious legislative lobby ; crude 
work of legislation ; dictatory legislation in State and 
Nation ; a slow and contradictory administration of 
Justice; a flippant disregard, even defiance, of the au- 
thority of the Law; a loss of political idealism and 
virtue. 

In the rapid march of events and under the influence 
of remarkable material prosperity the specific incidents 
which make up the above arraignment are liable to be- 
come obliterated, but the harassing impressions which 
they leave remain, neverthless. It is the frequent re- 
currence of these disquieting impressions that makes 
up the sum total of our political loss of confidence. 
The Author regrets he finds it necessary, for purposes 
of future arguments, to present at least a short general 
picture of our National transgressions. 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTIOX It 

(b) DEFECTS IN FEDERAL POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION; 
THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF; GROWING DISTRUST OF 
POPULAR SUFFRAGE 

Considering first our Federal politics and adminis- 
tration we find the ever-present disgraceful office- 
hunting, the spoils system of party-patronage, which at 
every change of administration upsets the public ser- 
vice. We have reached better conditions in this re- 
spect under the Civil Service System of appointment, 
but that system is yet far from complete. There is still 
left an amount of favoritism, corruption and incompe-. 
tence in the public service that calls for energetic 
measures of reform. 

Then, we have the extravagant appropriations of 
Congress drawn from an artificially stuffed treasury, 
the unfair and unearned proceeds of a protective tariff 
which, while in principle sound and beneficial, has long- 
needed amendment to restore it to a morally and eco- 
nomically sound measure of taxation. This tariff is, in: 
the opinion of the unbiased men of all parties, the very 

ROOT AND BRANCH OF OUR COMMERCIAL OBLIQUITY, of the 

fever of wealth-getting, of arrogant and oppressive 
Trusts, of unsound speculation in all directions and of 
doubtful financial methods. It has led the Nation into 
reckless extravagance, public and private, and such 
defiance of prudence and old-fashioned honesty in the 
conduct of business that were bound to culminate in a 
general loss of confidence in men, methods and values. 
It is these conditions that brought us to the financial 
panic of last October and the resulting business depres- 
sion from which we are still suffering. 

The above conditions slowly grew to maturity 
through the failure of the beneficent policies of public 



12 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

retrenchment and sensible, moderate tariff-reform 
which were attempted by President Grover Cleveland 
in his two terms of administration. They failed 
through the gross radicalism and incredible political 
incompetence of the Democratic party of that day. 
What had been rightly conceived ended in panic and 
dismay, generously helped along by the opposing poli- 
tical party. That National calamity furnished the 
grounds for re-establishing the protective policy in its 
most stringent form, as enacted in the McKinley Tariff 
and later in the present Dingley Bill. The results are 
the evils which have been stated. 

The protective tariff brought prosperity, true, but 
also gross materialism and corruption ; our prosperity 
is bought at the price of National virtue and reputation. 
This view is beginning to be held very largey through- 
out the country. It is felt that much of our wealth, like 
gamblers' gains, has not been properly and honestly 
earned ; that it is doing us more harm than good be- 
cause of the demoralizing influence it is spreading over 
the land. As an indirect but not the Less far-reaching 
effect the present administration, in its laudable pur- 
pose to stem the evils arising from the protective tariff, 
has been compelled to raise issues of Presidential pre- 
rogative, Constitutional practice and increased central- 
ization of power which are contributing their share to 
the prevailing political unrest. 

Parallel with the general situation outlined above 
has been the growth of a disheartening conviction, aris- 
ing from the innumerable failures of the Electorate 
to do its full duty, that our most cherished institution, 
universal suffrage, the very "Tree of Liberty," often 
brings forth fruits little to be proud of. For, in noth- 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 13 

ing is the gap between theory and practice in our 
government so forcibly illustrated as in the working 
of the Franchise. This subject is fundamental, deep 
and wide ; it touches the native and the naturalized 
Vote, the Xegro Question and Woman Suffrage. There 
is not a good citizen who has not thought about it with 
great concern and felt misgivings about its present 
form and application. Every election furnishes food 
for these reflections and creates wider disappointment 
with the working of the Ballot. In its character, as the 
source of all power and ultimate seat of all responsi- 
bility, the Franchise is felt to be the chief fountain of 
our political ills, and likewise, the source from which 
mostly the reformation of the republic must come. 

(c) FAULTS IN STATE AND CITY GOVERNMENT*, THE FRAN- 
CHISE RESPONSIBLE 

. In the individual State governments we find similar- 
conditions of loose administration and limping public 
service, of degrading bossism, incompetence and graft. 
A recent illustration was furnished by the Pennsyl- 
vania State Capitol scandal in which a clique of State 
officers perpetrated a gigantic swindle upon The People 
of that State for their own personal enrichment, the 
whole a huge conspiracy of public theft. There are 
many similar instances of connivance and fraud in 
state public works, throughout the Union. 

In regard to modern legislative practices in State and 
Nation, the action of "the lobby" and the growing dic- 
tator}* power of the Executive, it is plain that we have 
departed far from a rational practice of representative 
and deliberative government. The rank and file of 
Senators and Representatives but confirm the decisions 



14 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

of groups of Leaders, or of the clique of the Governor 
or President. That this "inactive acquiescence" in the 
will of others is mostly but a part of the bartering for 
favors of one kind or another, and at times an undis- 
guised purchase for money is well known. Not the 
least element of alarm is the rapid ascendency of the 
legislative power of the Executives as agitators and 
dictators of "personal" policies, and in which they are 
backed by an active "following" that expects to be re- 
warded for their work by political favors. This ten- 
dency is in opposition to the strict intention of our 
Federal and State Constitutions ; it is one example of 
that "stretching of prerogatives and functions" which 
characterizes our times and expresses the changed 
feeling we are acquiring in regard to the nature of our 
government. 

In our cities we find a spectacle of confirmed political 
debauch, so that it may be said there is not a city of any 
importance in the United States that is honestly admin- 
istered. Public improvements go on, very naturally; 
the cities like the State, grow and prosper; but over 
it all hovers the spirit of exploitation and incompe- 
tence. Boston, New York, Philadelphia. Baltimore, 
Pittsburgh, Chicago. St. Louis are all in the grasp of 
some political "machine," now Republican, now Dem- 
ocratic under the rule of a "Boss." Personal profit and 
party-power are their prime aims ; the interests of the 
cities themselves are a side-issue, the convenient op- 
portunity for their game of arrogance and loot. The 
administration of the Public Works Department, 
Street-Cleaning Department, Building Department, 
and Police Department of these cities gives testimony 
of these conditions. 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 15 

Who does not know of Tammany Hall in New York 
City, from Boss Tweed to Boss Murphy? Its reputa- 
tion is National! To mention only recent occurences, 
who has not heard of the Hall of Records and the City 
Prison scandals, or of the Manhattan Bridge con- 
spiracy, or of the cases of connivance and malfeasance 
in the Borough Presidencies and of the scandalous 
deals in sites for schools, parks and armories? The 
"rulers" of our cities are mc tly of a class of men who 
consider this kind of money-making the legitimate 
spoils of politics. 

In Boston the people are in the clutches of a tyran- 
nical Democratic ring of exploitation ; in Philadelphia 
it is a Republican gas-ring; in Chicago corruption is 
settled and constitutional all along the line ; in St. 
Louis it is a Franchise-ring that stole and perjured 
on a wholesale scale ; in San Francisco, worst of all, 
a political clique that can best be compared to a vam- 
pire, drew princely incomes from the tolerance of 
vilest dens of vice, and even after the terrible catas- 
trophe of earthquake and fire continued its merciless 
depredations upon the public resources, unmoved by 
the plight of their stricken city. 

Why, we may very opportunely ask, should all this 
be? Is it a delusion when we flatter ourselves to be a 
government of decent, honest people, freely joined in 
self-administration on grounds of justice, honor, good 
fellowship and common sense? We are, unfortunately, 
inured to these conditions, their generality has made 
them common-place. And we are such a busy people ! 
We have no time to ponder on these "incidents ;" we 
quickly forget these wrongs done us ; we must hurry 
along, attend to business — and make money ! "Let 



16 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

the politicians run the country meanwhile ; these 
little matters will surely right themselves bye-and- 
bye." Oh ! ostrichian delusion which blindly hides 
its head — not in heaps of sand, but in mounds of gold. 

(d) THE CURRENCY QUESTION 

As an outcome of the recent panic the country is 
deeply concerned with the question of currency evils, 
The subject being of National importance and some- 
what related to other topics of this book, something 
may be expected to be said about it. But currency 
reform is not a Constitutional, nor truly a political 
question, and does not directly concern the Author's 
point of view and objects. The crude plan and details 
of our National money and banking-system have been 
demonstrated for years ; they have, at least had some- 
thing to do with the panics of 1873, 1893-4, and this 
one of 1907 from which we are now emerging. This 
connection, however, is more a physical effect than 
anything else ; it has but slight relation to the under- 
lying economic, political and moral causes of these 
panics. The currency system is simply the mechanical 
apparatus of our money-transactions ; but as such it is 
undoubtedly defective and capable of causing much 
private and public suffering in times of disturbed 
values, loss of business confidence and general de- 
pression. 

This fact has again been so plainly demonstrated in 
the recent panic that the whole country is now aroused 
on the subject, so that the national congress may, at 
the next session, and as a result of the labors of the 
National Monetary Commission appointed to study 
the whole subject, be reasonably expected to enact a 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 17 

wise and thorough-going measure of currency and 
banking reform. All those who would follow these 
currency discussions with real understanding of the 
elementary principles of money, are referred to the 
Author's politico-financial pamphlet "the true situa- 
tion," written for the Gold and Silver Campaign of 
1896. In it the inter-relation of money and other 
values, the origin of the standards, the true relation 
between gold and silver, etc., are set forth in a concise 
and popular manner which at that time elicited very 
favorable endorsement. 

(e) DEFECTS IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 

Concurrent with these evidences of political and 
economic disease there has arisen of late years a deep 
dissatisfaction with the administration of justice. 
The whole system. Federal, State and Municipal, 
criminal and civil is felt to be too cumbersome in 
detail, contradictory and dilatory in method and too 
expensive in time and money. That which should be 
as the regulating and life-giving stream of the Nation 
in all its activities, is more often the source of per- 
plexity, aggravation and loss. Its operation is ruin- 
ously expensive, which puts its power, which should 
be equally accessible to all, beyond the reach of many. 
This is especially true of all civil litigations and bank- 
ruptcy receiverships, in which the people concerned 
are reduced to silent and impotent sufferers. With 
the enormous fees of receivers, referees, attorneys and 
lawyers, and the other incidental expenses, the assets, 
often but slightly impaired, are in too many cases eaten 
up to a nominal remnant. The unfortunate share- 
holders or litigants receive a pitiable mite of their 



18 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

former capital or savings, after months, often years, of 
distressing waiting. 

Two shameful cases of this kind of "liquidation" 
which occurred in New York City recently, that of 
the New York Building Loan Banking Company, and 
that of the Republic Savings and Loan Company, may 
serve as illustrations. The details have become known 
„ far and wide as outrageous examples of this kind of 
"legal winding-up of affairs." The matter of "costs" 
in such cases is well illustrated by the more recent 
trouble with the Knickerbocker Trust Company, of 
New York, in the reorganization of which each receiver 
was awarded by the Courts the cool sum of $100,000, 
for 3 months' work, the total "costs" of reorganiza- 
tion being nearly one million dollars. There are many 
such cases throughout the country. 

Can we wonder if the innocent depositor or 
share-holder, ground to pieces between the upper 
and the nether mill-stone, sneers at the Republic 
and turns Socialist or Anarchist? The State Banking 
Department, on which he had relied for security 
betrayed him ; the State Law Department which should 
have protected his interests to the utmost possible 
after the damage was done, wastes time and money in 
ruinous procedure, and, while lawyers are reaping 
a rich harvest, he is made penniless. To such an un- 
fortunate man this country of supposed equal rights 
and equal protection by the Law, must appear still, 
very much of a theory and very far from a fact. There 
is no good reason for such a state of affairs. In Eng- 
land, France and Germany, Justice moves more 
smoothly, quickly, positively, equitably. It can be 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 19 

made to work so here by a process of simplification 
of laws and procedure. 

The above quoted and similar occurences, i. e., the 
Life Insurance scandals of a few years ago, the bank- 
wrecking disclosed in the recent panic, the looting of 
the Third Avenue Railroad property in New York- 
City, The Metropolitan Securities Company's nefa- 
rious financial scheme, the Wall Street Ferry Com- 
pany jugglery, the gambling in railroad systems all 
over the country, etc., etc., all too numerous to men 1 
tion specifically, arraign the law because of its weak- 
ness to prevent and intercept, and its equal weakness 
to punish and cure. 

The effect of this is deplorable, for, the Federal and 
State Judicial systems are known to be a fundamental 
part of the entire governmental structure, one of the 
three powers of the realm in State and Nation ; it is, 
therefore, the governmental structure itself that is 
arraigned and drawn into doubt. This feeling about 
the insufficiency, impotency, contrariness, and worse, 
of the Law has led to disrespect of it on the part of 
The People, amounting to indifference on the part of 
the rich and influential. This is a most serious situa- 
tion ; there is no other agency equally powerful in 
breaking down a country ; it is a black worm that eats 
up patriotism, freedom, energy, self-respect, all the 
assets of a Nation's greatness and independence. 

(f) THE LABOR QUESTION, AND SOCIALISM 

Another question of great moment in our disturbed 
National condition is that of Labor ; not so much of 
"Labor and Capital" as of labor and socialism. The 
economic relations of the workers to the employers 



20 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

could be safely left to adjust themselves on the natural 
basis of supply and demanj, as the legal rights of each 
side are well defined by the law, if they were not com- 
plicated by the introduction of advanced socialistic 
doctrines into these disputes, on the part of Labor. 
These represent and display a generally hostile senti- 
ment towards "Capital" in +he abstract, and towards 
employers and men of means in the concrete. Specifi- 
cally, this hostility extends to the control of machinery 
and natural resources by individual owners, also to 
personal property and land-ownership of large extent. 
Further, socialism advocates Municipal, State and Na- 
tional ownership of public utilities, and a long program 
of political measures to equalize rights, property and 
opportunity. The point the Author wishes to make 
here is that a very large proportion of our native and 
alien working population have become imbued with 
these new theories and, unfortunately more with what 
is bad and irrational in them than by what is truly 
progressive, justified and humanitarian. 

In the course of natural association of interests this 
movement is now becoming affiliated, almost identical, 
with the Labor question as such, with Trades Union- 
ism, and is rapidly developing with it into one united 
issue and effort. The demand is for ever more pay, 
ever shorter hours, ever greater dictation to the em- 
ployer, accompanied by strikes, boycots, intimidation 
and frequently violence. And while this Labor-battle 
is proceeding on apparently independent lines, the 
political aims of the combination are being advanced 
in City, State and Nation. The formidable character 
of this socio-political Labor movement is easily meas- 
ured by its overwhelming numbers and its possession 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 21 

of the ballot; so that unless checked, unless directed 
into the channels of the reasonably desirable and prac- 
tical, the fate of the Republic itself, in its present form, 
is in jeopardy. 

There will be occasion to examine this important 
subject more in detail at other points of this book. 
The forces to be set in motion against these threaten- 
ing movements are chiefly a more sensible system of 
general education, a higher moral, politico-educational 
and age-standard for the Franchise, native and alien, 
greater restrictions to alien citizenship and to undesir- 
able immigration generally. Most important of all 
they must include the thorough reform of all abuses 
and defects existing in the country, and the gradual 
adoption of those desirable socialistic proposals which 
would more fully realize a truly Democratic ideal and 
in their operation bring more uniform happiness than 
now exists. 

(g) FURTHER CONCLUSIONS ON POPULAR SUFFRAGE AND 
REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT | EFFECT OF TEMPERAMENT 

Looking back over this mere outline of the internal 
causes of our political unrest (which the reader is ex- 
pected to fill out from his own knowledge of the facts), 
even the most optimistic must concede the gravity of 
the situation. What strikes us most forcibly is the 
remarkable position of the voter in relation to these 
conditions. Under our theory of government he is en- 
dowed with power to shape its course as he would 
have it, to make and unmake laws ; he also bears the 
ultimate responsibility for failure or success. This is 
in practice most specifically true of State and City 
politics. Why, then, does he vote thus for dishonesty 



22 XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 

and incompetence? Is he unable to undertsand the 
issues; has he no means of ascertaining the character 
of the men seeking office ; has he lost interest in his 
political rights and duties ; does he feel his impotence 
of asserting himself against the swirling current of 
arrogance and corruption? We cannot escape the feel- 
ing that the whole plan of self-government, as now in 
practice with us, is drawn into doubt by our perform- 
ances. 

This subject of the Franchise is the most momen- 
tous question that presses for solution by the Ameri- 
can People ; its importance is equally great in purely 
political matters, in Labor plans and socialistic prob- 
lems. It is, therefore, the most important topic of this 
book ; as, said before, both the source of, and the 
remedy for most of our National troubles. 

It must not be forgotten by those who would cavil 
at the preceding recital and point to the countries of 
Europe as afflicted by similar or other woes and im- 
perfections, that men historically trained and versed 
in political science, among whom are many Patriotic 
American scholars and statesmen, the idea is general 
that our Republic is still an experiment in government. 
Its working is daily being tried, and in that trial re- 
veals the conditions described. The analogy with 
Europe is not entirely tenable. There are exhibitions 
and movements there revealing faults and unrest, but 
they proceed on the lines of a natural and continuous 
political evolution, and are accompanied all the while 
by superior administrative practice. In this latter re- 
spect we are sorely deficient, while our political foun- 
dation is still new and experimental. These senti- 
ments can be plainly read in our patriotic Presidents" 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 23 

Messages and in many of the public utterances re- 
ferred to at the beginning of this article. The position 
of this Author is therefore supported by high authority 
and example. 

Certainly temperament has something to do with the 
view different individuals take of public affairs. It is 
apt to lead to errors of judgment of the value of facts, 
tending to one side or the other of a nice and just 
appreciation. Especially does optimism err in this 
manner, by closing our eyes to truth through the 
operation of a buoyant and hopeful "feeling," opposed 
to cold and accurate reasoning. Pessimism, on the other 
hand, while exaggerating the unfavorable facts of life, 
remains nearer the absolute truth than optimism. This 
is attested by the testimony of the overwhelming 
majority of mankind that imperfection and unhappi- 
ness are more prevalent than the opposite conditions. 
In effect, the practice of a rigid self-criticism has, by 
moral philosophers of all ages, been adjudged a more 
valuable quality to the Individual or a People than 
that of self-satisfied laudation ; the one makes for re- 
form and progress, the other for stagnation and decay. 



II.— EXTERNAL CONTRASTS 

These, named as the second of the causes of our 
political unrest, are furnished by our improved ac- 
quaintance with Europe, by which our own circum- 
stances have been set in the glare of a powerful search- 
light. The contrasts presented have opened the eyes 
of thinking men to the real appreciation of conditions 
at home. Comparison of the political methods and re- 



24 NAT 10 SAL EVOLUTION 

suits obtained abroad with our own proves in many- 
cases unfavorable to us. 

Our increased contact with Europe dates back about 
twenty-five years when an era of political good-feeling- 
began with England. It was soon followed by exten- 
sive social intercourse, annual visits abroad by prom- 
inent American families and return visits of English 
people to this country, by patronage of foreign schools 
of art and learning, by international marriages, etc. 
This intercourse extended early to France and Ger- 
many and other parts of Europe. The new wealth 
and opulence of Americans, the desire for travel and its 
well-known cultural benefits, the general progress both 
here and abroad in everything pertaining to the en- 
joyment and refinement of life, improved European 
railway service and, lately, the automobile have all 
contributed to this movement. 

Up to this period of political and social rapproche- 
ment, contact with Europe was practically confined to 
business men, scientists and artists. A strange feeling 
had existed in the United States that intercourse with 
Europe involved some sort of debasement of our social 
and political standards. We had made ourselves so 
isolated, and filled our minds with such an array of 
school-history prejudices, that we had attained to a 
state of. ignorance of political and social Europe that 
is quite beyond the comprehension of the present 
generation. No particular reproach attaches to us for 
this; it was the logical result of our National begin- 
ning, subsequent history and, also, of our geographical 
isolation. 

As time rolled by, however, the old asperity and 
prejudices against Europe in general, as the seat of 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 21 

absolute monarchies, and England in particular as our 
old enemy, softened and were replaced by a more 
rational feeling. This change was assisted by increased 
commercial relations, progress in steam-navigation 
and, lastly, the telegraphic cable service. In this and 
similar ways nations once hostile reach, at last, a 
position of free and candid inquiry towards each other, 
usually to their mutual benefit. 

We have since some time reached such a position 
of unprejudiced comparison with regard to England 
and Europe and, indeed, in a wider sense, with regard 
to the history of civilization. As a result we see the 
people of Europe, though they be mostly living under 
monarchies, to be neither slaves nor fools, nor political 
cowards. YYe see that they enjoy the benefits of 
orderly government, and a very fair measure of per- 
sonal and political liberty, in some cases as great as 
our own. 

We see that monarchies and empires, while justly 
repugnant to us in principle, have many compensating 
features ; that the rulers are rarely ever the - dreadful 
tyrants we had been led to believe them ; that the 
conditions of life and business there are often more 
secure, settled and systematic, the public service 
generally superior to ours, honest, stable and dignified ; 
we find that political and private probity are of a high 
order, the equal, if not the superior, of our own. 
Further, we see that the social fabric and the family 
life are as firm and pure as ours ; that even the divi- 
sion of society into classes according to birth, merit, 
wealth and education has many ethical and practical 
points of advantage, even of absolute justice, over 
our indiscriminate social mingling and the false out- 



2G NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

ward pretense of an equality which really does not 
exist, and from the effort at which we suffer much, 
unable to speak out. 

These instructive lessons have been valuables to us, 
have broadened our minds and shown us our own 
weaknesses. They should not, however, and cannot 
shake us in the conviction that our free Democratic 
government occupies, in its principle at least, a higher 
plane of justice, self-respect and humanitarian im- 
pulses than any form of monarchy or empire. The 
problem for the United States to solve is how to bring 
together the authority and honesty of monarchial ad- 
ministrations with our own more free, broad and just 
institutions. It is a peculiar phenomenon of history 
that in great political or social upheavals, when some 
new idea takes possession of the mind of a people, men 
are not content to reform only, to adopt a new prin- 
ciple and graft it upon what is good of the old system ; 
no, they will, wherever possible, pull up by the roots 
and start anew at the bottom. In this violent process 
much that was valuable in the old order and the fruit 
of hard experiences is lost; much that was natural and 
necessary is discarded. 

All governments, however, must needs be built upon 
those traits of human nature that are inborn and of 
the species and largelv the same in all times and 
among all peoples. Thus the lessons of civilization 
have to be learned over and over again, the immutable 
human character reasserting itself in remarkable 
agreement throughout the ages. We, also, have lost 
or forgotten some of these lessons known by our pre- 
revolutionary fathers, lessons of conservatism, respect 
for Law and authority, appreciation of personal worth 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 27 

and dignity rather than of riches, of the ethics and 
aesthetics of politics and life, that we must now re- 
learn, recover, to establish our govermental idea not 
on reason alone but also on the lessons of history and 
on the inexorable traits and requirements of human 
nature. 



III.— THE MORAL ISSUE.— POLITICAL 
IDEALS 

The foregoing recital leaves no doubt that we are 
in the midst of a distinct moral issue in our National 
life, partly the cause and partly the result of the con- 
ditions which have been described. Its many manifes- 
tations in the financial and business world have been 
stated and are well known. President Roosevelt's 
trenchant messages to the Congress have stirred the 
country from Maine to California. The discourses, on 
this topic, of our prominent teachers, ministers and 
observing public men have been no less incisive and 
convincing. This moral turpitude has spread over the 
land like the waves that extend, in ever-increasing 
circles,, from a stone dropped into a quiet pool, until, 
they strike the shore of resistance. This shore of 
resistance in our case is the re-awaking of truth and 
conscience, the moral reaction. 

The offensive stone has been indicated by the 
Author in the Introductory Article. It is the United 
States Government with its corrupting protective 
tariff, a measure ethically dishonest, setting the ex- 
ample of arbitrariness, combination, stifling of free 
competition, of forceful control before the people. 



28 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

Why should they not adopt it in their own smaller 
way, since it proves so successful in filling the Na- 
tional coffers with easily gotten wealth? With easy, 
unearned wealth come easy ways and relaxed con- 
science, love of luxury and display, extravagance, 
which in turn breed more of that on which they grew 
big themselves. 

It has been so in all times. Wherever a people has 
enjoyed an era of quick and easy wealth the fruit has 
been the same. We need not go to Greece or Rome or 
Renaissance Spain and Italy for an illustration. 
Modern Germany has furnished one in the era of head- 
long activity, wild speculation, unsound finance, 
luxury and extravagance of life which followed in the 
wake of the five thousand millions of francs of French 
gold that poured into that country in a steady stream 
from 1870 to 1890. But Germany, guided by strong 
hands, has long since recovered from her fever of 
illicit bonanza-wealth; the good sense and innate 
honesty of the people has found itself again, and the 
country has settled down to sound progress on con- 
servative lines. The writer believes that a similar re- 
action has already begun in the United States ; that 
the last panic has taught us a wholesome lesson ; that 
reform is even now in the air. Many lines of business 
have remained untainted ; in the ordinary business of 
commerce and manufacturing, in the Department 
stores and Retail stores of the great cities, in the build- 
ing industry, in the produce and agricultural fields 
probity has generally remained the principle of con- 
duct. 

It is in the manipulation of large properties, in trusts 
in restraint of free competition, in railroads and min- 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 29> 

ing, in finance and banking, in stock^ambling and 
produce-gambling that illegal and dishonest methods,, 
abortive mergers, unhealthy speculation, trickery and 
deception of the public have taken place. This monster 
is still about us on all sides, though cringing, and must 
be combatted to a finish with unremitting determina- 
tion. The name of the Republic is at stake. In this 
battle, however, legislative measures alone, measures 
of regulation, repression, enforcement of existing laws,, 
etc., cannot reach the real root of the trouble. That 
can be summed up in one great word : Dishonesty in 
act and intention, and as such includes all phases of 
evil. But as this is an ethical question, reform by law 
must be accompanied by ethical, by moral reformation. 

The most eloquent, fearless and persistent apostle 
of this moral regeneration is our great President 
Theodore Roosevelt. With the enthusiasm of youth 
and the strength of Samson he has thrown himself into 
this work leading the people back upon the path of 
plain, honest methods. As a statesman and sociologist 
of deep insight and wide information, and endowed 
with a great analytical and logical mind, he has clearly 
perceived the foundation of this evil to lie in the de- 
based ideals of the people. His latest and most em- 
phatic messages to the Congress have laid bare with 
unmerciful frankness the national sore. In the deep' 
sincerity and strength of his convictions, and the un- 
compromising earnestness of his aim the President 
may, at times, seem too general and too vehement in 
his utterances ; but this must be charged to his natural 
temperament, and is but a small detraction from his 
brilliant qualities and immeasurable services. 

That what is known as the ''Roosevelt Policies, " 



30 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

I. e., the restoration of the discipline of order, honesty 
and authority to our civil and industrial activities ; the 
punishment of those who have defied the law; the 
regulation and control of trusts, railroads and other 
■common carriers ; the insistance on just capitalization 
of these large corporations so as to protect the invest- 
ing public, that these policies should be held respon- 
sible for the recent financial panic and so-called "loss of 
confidence" by the public, is, at best, a far-fetched 
charge that can only be substantiated partly and as an 
indirect effect. 

The President is by no means the first or only man 
who has recognized these conditions and spoken about 
them ; their presence has been known since a long time 
by the general public. One need but to have been a 
careful reader of the Daily Papers for the last ten 
years, and an observer of the doubtful and extravagant 
business-ventures which have sprung up everywhere, 
houses of cards built on sand and "confidence," instead 
of on solid capital, to have seen, in spite of apparent 
prosperity, the steady drift of affairs towards the abyss 
of distrust and panic. This structure of inflated values 
and false pretenses could not possibly hold up very 
long. To assume that the President could have 
created the loss of confidence by any words of his un- 
supported by facts or by an already existing public 
feeling, is a truly ingenious proposition. He turned on 
the light ; even more, he put the match to the accumu- 
lated powder which, if left to augment would soon, by 
spontaneous combustion, have torn the republic to 
pieces by revolution. 

As a practical statesman and not merely an ex- 
norter, the President directs his efforts mainly to the 



NAT I OX AL EVOLUTION 31 

enactment of legislation to cure past abuses and to 
set up higher standards for our future work. This 
course is perfectly proper; suppression of evil and its 
punishment by the law, and the enactment of new laws 
to provide stronger safeguards for the future must 
always be the first steps in the protection of society 
and the devolopment of a moral reformation. In the 
numerous measures proposed by the President there 
is a strong tendency to use the Federal authority ex- 
clusively for obtaining the desired results, in other 
words for "centralization" of power at Washington, to 
the detraction of State Authority." 

With this design the Author is not in full sympathy, 
as may be gathered from all that has been said, so far, 
on this subject. The question, while very important, 
is, however, secondary to the main issue of moral re- 
form ; its political position and relative value in 
government will be treated in a later chapter. The 
writer agrees that a certain amount of increased 
Federal control will be necessary to carry on these 
new regulative ideas, but believes that it will be pos- 
sible to combine this with a proper recognition and 
assertion of State Authority as well, without clash and 
to the general advantage. 

But the deeper question must not be neglected. 
Laws alone cannot make people honest ; if that were 
the case the Congress would but need to pass a law 
that "Henceforth all people of these United States 
must be strictly honest in all their dealings," and all 
our troubles would cease. Would such a law accom- 
plish anything? No; the issue in question is a moral 
one; it involves reflection and repentance; regenera- 
tion must be the result of a purified, more unselfish 



32 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

spirit, of healthier feeling and better understanding. 
Appeal must first be had to the heart, to the sympa- 
thies ; we must become convinced of the impropriety, 
the unfairness, the low selfish meanness and lack of 
common justice of dishonesty. Then, we must appeal 
to the intelligence, to the observation of its practical 
results. We must become convinced of its utter fool- 
ishness, its instability as a social and business system, 
its destructive power to the Individual and the State. 
The whole process of reform must be toward a convic- 
tion that we must return to the old-fashioned plain 
honesty in our own best interests, material and 
spiritual. 

The two agencies capable of accomplishing such a 
moral reformation are doctrinary religion and pure 
ethics. Of these two Religion has, unfortunately, 
proven its unsufficiency in controlling the minds of 
men ; we have religions and churches of every kind all 
around us, and yet these perversions have obtained 
the upper hand. Religion to-day is largely negative 
in its moral teaching because it relies for its influence 
on fear ; the fear of God, a somewhat too abstract and 
intangible sentiment for the modern mind, and the 
fear of puishment after death by damnation and hell- 
tortures, a sentiment more concrete than the first, but 
fast fading away and becoming repulsive to our en- 
lightened intelligence. 

It is not possible to-day to resuscitate into an active 
moral doctrine and force of persuasion the hundred 
graduated hells of the Brahmans and the Transmigra- 
tion of the Soul, nor even the purgatory and hell-fire 
of modern Christian beliefs. Such ideas of after- 
punishment have become too vague and speculative 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 33 

to be the foundation of practical morality ; they now 
appeal only to children in age and children in mind. 
In the words of President Schurman of Cornell Uni- 
versity we need a "fresh baptism of political idealism" 
and "the reconstruction of a reasonable religious faith, 
on a basis which neither physical science nor historical 
criticism can assail." To a growing number the present 
religious systems are stagnant and unsatisfying, be- 
cause unconvincing. 

The force of pure ethics, on the other hand, is a 
potent and unbiased agent, because it appeals solely to 
the heart and the intelligence, free from any meta- 
physical fears to enthrall the brain. It is the active 
factor which has been the mainstay of the moral 
teaching of religion itself ; religious honesty is only 
ethical honesty superimposed on metaphysical specu- 
lation. The practical results of both systems are the 
same, as proven by the facts of civilization. Through 
ethics we learn to feel and think rightly on all matters 
of conduct, not because we fear something but because 
we are convinced, through our free intelligence, of the 
plain justice and good common-sense of such conduct. 

Selfishness and all foolish passions and ambitions 
melt away before the sun of pure reason, of the cool, 
comparative analysis of facts and circumstances ; of 
the loving sympathy with our fellow-man whom we 
behold struggling along under the same burden, and 
harassed by the same troublesome mortal coil. Under 
such influences of a sympathetic and rational philos- 
ophy of life, our present selfish exhibitions cannot long 
survive. Let us make the resolution to become once 
more a fair-dealing, just and plainly honest people for 
the sake of the absolute right and moral beauty of such 



U NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

conduct, for the sake of our great and ever greater 
republic ! 

The above observations on religion are in nowise 
intended to detract from its spiritual influence and 
higher objects, which it is still capable of filling with 
the multitude, but only to show its weakness in the 
enforcement of moral conduct, of which it erroneously 
claims to be the original and only source and custo- 
dian. It should and must share this claim with ethics, 
and increasingly so as civilization and the faculty of 
pure reason advance ; for, its grounds have always re- 
mained the same, while those of religion are forever 
shifting. In practical application both systems need 
the assistance of the Law, the Police Courts and the 
Prisons to make their principles effective. With the 
majority of the people, sad to say, these are still the 
most powerful arguments for doing right. Pure re- 
ligion, as the speculation about the supernatural, our 
origin, purpose and destiny after death, has its legiti- 
mate domain and inexhaustible interest ; it will gain in 
that by surrendering its claims as the sole foundation 
of practical morality. 

The removal of evil conditions and practices as the 
result of the "mending of our morals" will, however, 
not touch the serious defects of plan and method in 
our political institutions which have been described and 
will be further elaborated in the later chapters. Only 
the effective reformation of the ills of our poitical sys- 
tem together with the return of the people to sound 
honesty and simple dignity of life, will enable us to 
escape from present dangers and put us on the road to 
new and desirable progress. 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 35 

Many men, including President Roosevelt, believe 
that this country is on the eve of a tremendous jump 
forward in population, activities and political interests. 
Our destiny for ever greater numbers and ever wider 
fields is plain and inevitable. The "Union" is more 
and more becoming one country, a truly National 
State in all its internal and external concerns. The 
completion of the Panama Canal, but a few years 
hence, will be a powerful link in binding together our 
Atlantic and Pacific coast lines for commercial and 
political purposes. Railway construction on an un- 
precedented scale will follow the founding of that 
great business on a basis of honesty, security and per- 
manence. Other important National interests such as 
the improvement of rivers and harbors, State canals, 
irrigation, forestry, mining, and steps for the conser- 
vation of the Natural Resources of the country will 
keep pace with the railroads. 

In looking thus into the future, the enormous terri- 
tory of our country is an important consideration. It 
has been said that the world has become smaller 
through the rapid means of communication of modern 
times; and, metaphorically speaking, this is true. 
Likewise, the United States is becoming smaller by 
the extension of railroad and steamboat systems, the 
telegraph and telephone. But it is still more true, 
metaphorically, that the increase of population and 
activities has, on the other hand, enlarged the territory 
of the Nation and of each State. There is everywhere 
more to have and to do, increase of opportunities, con- 
centration of interests and associations ; everywhere 
more people from year to year and more of everything 
else. This- makes each County and State in a sense 



36 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

larger, ties everyone down more closely to the needs 
and work of his own little corner, of his own locality 
and business, and away from the country at large, 
which grows, in comparison, to an incomprehensible 
enormity of size and interests. 

All this put together should convince us that now 
is the psychological moment for founding the New 
National Era which is preparing to arrive, on a basis 
of solid morality and sound laws for the conduct of 
business and finance ; and, also, on a new political 
basis for better government, purer citizenship, and a 
more perfect democratic and humanitarian ideal. We 
must not wait until we are overwhelmed by our own 
numbers and figurative size, till we have a population 
too unwieldy and too preoccupied to be led into new 
paths and awakened to a new ethical and political life. 
Now is the moment, while all the elements are still 
within dirigible bounds, to strike out for comprehen- 
sive National Reforms, and lay the solid foundation 
.for a great future. 



B.— INTRODUCTORY EDUCATIONAL 
ARTICLES 

(a) THE MAKING OF THE REPUBLIC— SELF- 
GOVERNMENT OF A PEOPLE 

In order to be able to argue the Constitutional 
Propositions of the following Chapter convincingly, 
the Author will, first, in these articles sketch in large 
strokes the origin and elementary ideas of our govern- 
ment, show their relation to our modern conditions, 
and indicate wherein we have already departed from 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 37 

the original conception. To this will be added an out- 
line of the salient features and objects of all govern- 
ment in order to widen the political horizon of the or- 
dinary reader. The careful study of these themes will 
disclose the solidarity of those universal human traits 
and needs which all forms of government must satisfy 
if they would endure. It is their violation which has 
brought so many failures, and made the history of the 
world the story of a perpetual struggle steeped in 
blood. 

The historical development of the colonies from the 
crudest beginnings, and under heavy trials, into 
orderly and prosperous commonwealths as British 
Provinces, and their final political struggle with Eng- 
land for independence, is known by all. It is not the 
purpose of this book to dwell upon the details of these 
events, but to sketch rapidly the material and senti- 
mental influences that brought about the final result: 
Our free and independent Republic. The story of the 
different scattered and disconnected colonies along the 
Atalntic seaboard, which finally shaped themselves 
into the thirteen original States, is much the same in 
its general features. Nearly all were settled from 
England, Scotland, Holland, French and German 
countries as the result of persecution of the various 
sects of Protestantism that had sprung up in the wake 
of the reformation, and were opposed either by the 
original Catholic Church or by the English Episcopal 
Establishment. In the new country across the sea 
these distracted people sought new homes where they 
might follow their religious convictions in peace. 

Conjointly with this movement arose the trading 
companies, founded under Royal Charters, whose 
object was the commercial exploitation of the new land 
of whose wealth of Raw Materials and attractive 
Natural Features information had gradually reached 
Europe. There were, also, the grants of American 
Lands made under Royal Charters to favored Nobles 
of the English Court as rewards for political and other 
services, and the owners of which set en foot move- 



38 XAT10NAL EVOLUTION 

ments for colonizing these lands for their personal 
profit. 

In addition to religious fugitives and purely "In- 
dustrial'' emigrants there were a considerable number 
of political outcasts, adventurers and released convicts, 
even, included in this exodus from Europe. In nation- 
ality they represented English, Scotch, Dutch, French, 
German and Swedish blood, with Spanish and Negro 
admixtures in the Southern Colonies. Unquestionably, 
however, the English-Scotch element predominated in 
numbers, character and mentality, ably seconded by 
the Dutch. These two races were the shaping in- 
fluence of this new people ; they represented a grade 
of men and women mostly of good families, of ability 
above the average, and of sterling moral worth. 

But whoever the settlers were, or wherever they 
came from, they all sought in the new country freedom 
from some form or other of oppression, and the right 
and opportunity to live their own lives in a way that 
had been denied them in their native lands. Thus, from 
the very beginning the common thought of freedom 
and independence was present as an elementary senti- 
ment of their existence. To this came the inborn love 
of the Anglo-Saxon and Scotch races for personal 
liberty, and their natural self-reliance and indepen- 
dence of character. This noble trait could not help 
communicating itself to the settlers of other racial 
origin. 

To this foundation for Liberty came the material 
and political conditions of the new land, and also 
worked towards the same end : Independence. The 
colonists had left countries which possessed orderly 
governments, courts and churches, industries and com- 
merce, roads, bridges, ports, in short, all the agencies 
of a civilized existence. Out of these settled conditions 
they tumbled into the wilderness, a wilderness un- 
touched, of gigantic proportions, with great lakes and 
rivers, immense forests, of a climate unusual to them, 
with nowhere a sign of civilization. The task before 
them was tremendous; everything necessary to their 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 39 

existence and comfort had to be created and hewn out 
of their raw surroundings; they were not Indians and 
Negros but civilized men and women. 

For many years none but the crudest, hardest poineer 
conditions prevailed, lacking in every element of bodily 
comfort. Hunger, disease and suffering of every kind 
were the steady companions of the colonists. Many 
thousands of the less hardy perished in the strnggle 
against the adversities. When they finally conquered, 
under the most heroic endurance and fortitude of mind, 
and at last saw the smiling face of order and success 
come out of the cruel chaos, how could they feel other- 
wise than that it was their work that had done it, that 
they owed nothing to anyone else for it, that it was 
they aloxe that had created their new homes, their 

OWN DEAR COUNTRY. 

These budding sentiments were for a long time but a 
sub-conscious state of the mind, not yet ready for loud 
and confident expression. The colonists remained for 
a considerabble period under the spell of their Euro- 
pean associations, of the inborn loyalty to king and 
Fatherland. But as time went on the power of this in- 
fluence relaxed. While more people were coming from 
Europe all the time, and undergoing this same natural 
naturalization, there was already growing up a sec- 
ond and a third generation. These were natives, who 
were born into this new world as their patrimony, who 
felt nothing of European allegiance, and who looked 
upon this country as their free and unqualified inherit- 
ance. 

It needed now but some external excitant to bring 
all- this growing sentiment to full consciousness, to 
fearless acknowledgment, to jubilant assertion. This 
excitant was furnished by the slowly maturing polit- 
ical situation. Under the Charter Companies and still 
more under the direct crown charters with guaranty 
of "free government within themselves," the colonists 
had enjoyed a considerable measure of self-govern- 
ment. While the Governors, Judges and other officials 
were appointed by the Crown or other rulers, the peo- 



40 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

pie had their own Assemblies elected by Manhood Suf- 
frage, and they appointed many of the lesser officers, 
so that in all that concerned the routine of life they, 
practically, governed themselves. This condition was 
changed when the colonies, with few exceptions, be- 
came fuly organized royal provinces of England, 
through the Charter Companies relinquishing their 
titles to the Crown, and through the Crown itself re- 
scinding- its own direct and guaranteed Charters. The 
reasons for these occurrences need not here be con- 
sidered. 

These important events brought a new political era 
upon the American Colonies. Gradually the grip of 
England was tightened, the dependence of the Colonies 
was accentuated, regular military establishments were 
introduced, officialdom and Royal ceremonial empha- 
sized. The many minor measures introduced to re- 
strict their former rights of self-government, the petty 
civic regulations enforced to make the people under- 
stand that they were now "being governed/' the 
haughty demeanor of the military and civil officers, all 
caused intense provocation. It made the people not 
only sullen and resentful, but also self-conscious and 
determined ; the crystalizing process of their self-asser- 
tion had begun. The colonies, always spreading, had 
become drawn together geographically and now drew 
together sentimentally; they began to feel their unity 
of position and interests, the identity of their relation- 
ship towards England. 

The British did not fail to see this temper of the 
colonists ; they knew, long before the acute question 
of "taxation without representation" had come to 
the front as a welcome difference upon which to hang 
a much deeper contention, that there was a strong 
current for Freedom and National Independence run- 
ning through these people, that they plainly considered 
the country their own. On their part they were con- 
trolled not only by their pride and prestige as a leading 
nation "of Europe, and as the exponents of the principle 
of the Absolute Monarchy, but also by a live covetous- 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 41 

ness for the undisputed material possession of the 
American Colonies. 

The once despised "pack of heretics and adventurers" 
had developed into prosperous and creditable com- 
monwealths ; the inherent power of the Anglo-Saxon 
race had asserted itself and brought agriculture, in- 
dustries, commerce and ship-building to a flourishing 
condition. Wealth and refinement of life, equal to 
that of the mother-country, were beginning to manifest 
themselves. "Here was a people of high quality and a 
country of boundless extent and resources that must 
be saved to the British Crown at all hazards." ''Could 
England permit herself to be defied in her Royal rights 
and material advantage by these colonists, descended 
from her own sons and daughters; could England face 
a secession, or even a dishonorable compromise, while 
France and Spain were holding undisputed sway over 
large territories in this same America, they whom she 
met on every field?" 

In this way matters progressed towards the mo- 
mentous times immediately preceding the Revolution, 
in ever-increasing strain. One-hundred-and-fifty years, 
about, had elapsed since the settlements had begun. 
The native-born populaton had long outgrown the. 
foreign-born, in spite of the steady stream of immigra- 
tion. To the majority, therefore, England had not 
only become an oppressor and usurper, but also a 
foreigx xatiox with whom they had no further con- 
cern of natal sympathy or political obligation. They 
felt that England had done but little for the pioneer 
fathers combatting the wild country, while now she 
wished to reap where they had sown. 

Hence, when the Stamp Act of 1765 was passed the 
fruit had ripened and the path of the Colonies was 
clear. From Maine to Georgia a new political destiny 
was shaping itself for action; and soon the struggle 
broke loose. The details are history and do not con- 
cern us here further. While there were many Loyalists 
and some Indifferents. the practical unanimity of the 
thirteen colonies is proven by their action in the local 



42 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

Assemblies and in the Continental Congress at Phila- 
delphia ; and the depth of feeling and convictions 
which animated them were attested, and are forever 
immortalized, by a courage, tenacity, patience, self- 
sacrifice and physical endurance, in this unequal 
struggle, which stand unsurpassed in the annals of 
history. 



Parallel with the foregoing political and material 
conditions there ran administrative, social and 
economic factors that made a combination not only 
irresistible for independence, but well-nigh perfect for 
self-government by the people. A remarkable social, 
intellectual and educational equality existed among 
the people of the colonies. The leveling influences of 
the life of struggle in the new land had put all on a 
basis of practically equal necessities and aims ; they all 
were settlers, i. e., farmers, and, along with that, 
mechanics, tradesmen, merchants, professional men. 
The pursuit of agriculture which was followed, neces- 
sarily, by all, joined them all together in a bond of 
social equality. 

Differences of wealth arose but slowly to erect social 
barriers. In education the majority occupied the same 
level afforded by the common schools of the country. 
A higher education did not make its appearance in any 
force until well on towards the years of the Revolu- 
tion ; and those so favored were fired by a united 
enthusiasm for liberty, equality, fraternity and the 
rights and dignity of man, the new gospel of human 
emancipation expounded in the writings of Voltaire, 
Montesquieu, Jean Jaques Rousseau, Thomas Payne. 

Territorially the colonies consisted of widely scat- 
tered settlements of limited population, where every- 
body, practically, was equal, where everyone knew 
everyone else intimately. This condition is the very 
foundation-stone of free government in which the 
citizens are called upon to choose, out of their own 
midst, their law-makers and officers. This privilege, 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 43 

as we have seen they had enjoyed to a large degree and 
for a long time in their local affairs, so that there was 
not much new in principle for them to learn. They 
had brought this practice over with them from Old 
England, as the most precious part of their parish and 
county system. The English Parish has justly been 
called the "True cradle of Liberty." The pioneer life 
had made them a bright, active people of prudence and 
self-reliance. Under the sum total of these conditions 
the right of every honorable grown-up man to vote and 
share in his country's government, was indeed "a self- 
evident truth" ; such a body of men were able to give, 
and could be trusted to give, what is required of the 
citizenship of a Republic. 

Therefore, while the revolution against England 
was primarily and most ostensibly a war for indepen- 
dence from that country, for a separate political exis- 
tence, it was also and even more a war for free "self- 
government," as a sine qua non. Liberty and Indepen- 
dence were synonymous terms in those days in more 
than one sense, for, the strongest sentiment of all was 
that for the independence of the colonies among them- 
selves. Had the sacrifice of that principle at any time 
been made a condition of the fight against England, 
the war would have dropped to the ground. No; the 
thirteen colonies joined in a provisional and limited 
federation as independent units to fight a common 
enemy, in their aim for a common ideal ; and they were 
to remain individually independent after the victory 
were won. As to the form of permanent federal union 
that was to be established among them, that was to 
come later. Thus, self-government based on Liberty 
beyond a question ; independence of the separate 
States positively ; a Union of States, if that should 

prove DESIRABLE AND PRACTICABLE, Slich was the ORDER 

of evolution of the United States of America. In 
that process, as firmly embodied in the constitution 
has lain the strength of the Republic ever since. 

It is in the small, independent, self-governed local 
community of fairly equal, wide-awake and liberty- 



44 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

loving people, in the church parish, small Town and 
County, that we find at once the nucleus and the re- 
juvenating spring of self-government. This founda- 
tion may be enlarged by agglomeration of such units 
to Republics or states of reasonable proportions, 
determined by historical and geographical conditions. 
But the extent must be limited, territorially and in 
regard to numbers of people, to such absolute dimen- 
sions that the principle of personal ken between the 
citizens, and of ready inter-communication in all direc- 
tions shall be the keynote of the public life. For us it 
has been the real salvation of the republic that the 
above conditions practically existed at the time of its 
formation out of fthe separate colonies. 

A union of separate States or Republics of the above 
limits can safely comprise a great territory and large 
number of such parts, as our country does to-day, and 
exist successfully and be durable provided the federa- 
tion be confined to those features strictly necessary 
to insure union of action and service in matters in 
which such is desirable. This necessary feature of 
strength was incorporated with remarkable sagacity 
in our Constitution, not, however, without a great 
contention, as to scope and detail, between opposite 
wings in the Constitutional Congress. It continued 
for years after the Constitution had been adopted, so 
great was the jealousy felt by many towards too strong 
a central orovernment. 

As finally embodied, the Federal Activities were to 
embrace the duties of Foreign Affairs, National 
Defence, Federal Courts and Federal Taxation, the 
creation of a system of uniform Money, Weights and 
Measures, National and Interstate Commerce Regula- 
tion, Jurisdiction over Rivers and Harbors, Adminis- 
tration of the Public Lands and of the Post Office. 
This seems a measure of Central Authority ample for 
the purposes that were intended to be accomplished 
by it ; It left to the several States full power of self- 
government within their own domains. The National 
Government was not to govern the country at large 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 45 

in detail, only to represent and direct the united in- 
terests of the several States. The Union was to be one 
of strong independent parts, not a union of subjection. 
The reasonableness, justice and absolute wisdom of 
this division of authority and action has been proven 
by time. 

How far we may proceed with safety on the path of 
Centralization to meet altered modern conditions will 
be more closely examined in later chapters. This 
much, however. may be said right now that, in principle, 
greater centralization must and will be destructive 
to the republic, because it is antagonistic to both the 
personal and the territorial basis of democratic self- 
government, as these have been developed in these 
arguments. The unusually great extent of our coun- 
try, and the number and economic diversity of its 
component parts will in this attempt prove an especial 
source of weakness. To make our position safer and 
stronger we should, rather, sub-divide into more and 
smaller independent parts, than concentrate into a 
central government for the whole country. 



(b) LIBERTY, EQUALITY, MANHOOD 
SUFFRAGE, CITIZENSHIP 

All these ideas of the form and scope which the 
federal republic was to assume were thought out and 
fought out while the struggle with England was pro- 
ceeding. The National Constitution stands as the 
final result of these labors ; but the ethical thought 
underlying all the aspirations of the times, the moral 
program of the Revolution, was expressed at the very 
outset of the contest in the immortal declaration of 
independence. It was great to contend for indepen- 
dence from England, to maintain independence for the 
separate States while planning for a suitable form of 
federation, it was greatest of all to base all this upon 
the just principle of self-government ; but all these 
were only the practical application of something still 



46 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

greater in its essence and ultimate consequences for 
all mankind. It was the assertion of and contention 
for emancipation from the old-time thraldom and 
imbecile submission of the individual, the grand and 
bold proclamation of the natural and inalienable 

RIGHTS OF MAX. 

Said Patrick Henry : "Give me Liberty or give me 
Death," in a burst of exultant, defiant thirst for free- 
dom. Freedom from what? The yoke of England, 
certainly, but more, freedom of the person, of the in- 
dividual to think and feel for himself, to be the builder 
of his own destiny, free from arbitrary control and 
dictation. There were many other such fiery declara- 
tions of an exalted enthusiasm for Liberty. The 
sentiment had become personified into a spiritual ideal, 
a goddess of inspiration to the hearts of men, a sub- 
limation of all that is noble in thought and feeling. 

But what is this noble dame liberty when taken 
down from her high pedestal and put to work at the 
problems of practical achievement? What is her proper 
scope, and what are her limitations? The answer is: 
Like every other quality, Freedom is defined by its 
contrasts, which are oppression, arbitrary rule, sub- 
jection of personal liberty of thought and action to 
the will of another. The limitations must needs be set 
by the golden rule of life: "Do not to others what 
thou wouldst not have them do against you." There- 
fore the liberty of one is confined by the liberty of the 
other, i. e., his rights, which are everyone's rights. 
Thus Liberty includes equality, equality in rights and 
duties as a man, before the Law, as a citizen under 
self-government. Br-t equal duties involve equal 
capacities, mental, physical, material ; and, where the 
power to perform equal duties equally does not exist, 
can there be true equality? No; and where there is 
not true equality can there be equal liberty? No; 
plainly not ; we know it as a fact that they do not 
together exist on earth ; the one excludes the other. 

All human conditions are a proportion between 
opportunity and capacity; the first might be made 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 47 

fairly equal but the latter never. Nature herself is 
against it and proclaims it so in all her works ; hence, 
full equality of man is impossible. Yet, there have 
been spun on its assumption, or, at least, on the theory 
of its feasible attainment and elementary truth great 
systems of social and political reform, extreme doc- 
trines of material socialism, which have unsettled many 
minds by nourishing this impossible hope. 

How, then, about the "Declaration of Independence" 
when that Instrument says: "We hold these truths 
to be self-evident ; that all men are created equal ; that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain in-, 
alienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." These stirring words 
are often taken as an unqualified assertion of the 
absolute equality of Man, from every point of view ; 
but clearly they are not. The words "are created 
equal" evidently refer only to the equality of human 
nature, of the Species, of physical wants and general 
mental -and moral equipment. If more had been in- 
tended it would of necessity have been expressed; 
they could not possibly have been limited to that 
plain, short statement, had they referred to political 
and social equality 

As to the "inalienable rights" they are qualified as 
"certain" such rights, meaning such as are generally 
understood and conceded between man and man ; their 
number and scope are not fully stated, only the most 
important being described specifically, as, "life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." 

The fathers, in spite of their enthusiastic fervor, 
undoubtedly felt the great responsibility attaching to 
their utterances in this all-important document, and 
wisely remained on the terra fir ma of common sense 
and practical possibility. We see, therefore with 
satisfaction, that the words of the "Declaration" are 
in no wise in contradiction with the limitatons of 
Liberty and Equality as they were defined in the pre- 
ceding argument. From that reasoning, supported 
by our daily experience with our fellow man, we may 



4S XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 

proclaim it as a definite truth, resting on unimpeach- 
able ground, that in some respects we are all equal, 
while in others we are not. We all must be accorded, 
beyond a doubt, those certain inalienable rights of 
self-respecting manhood, i. e., personal independence, 
equality before the Law, equal protection of life and 
property, and freedom in the pursuit of happiness in 
satisfaction of the demands of our human nature. In 
other respects we cannot claim equal rights because 
we do not possess equal capacities and, therefore, 
cannot perform equal duties and assume equal respon- 
sibilities. These truths have a direct bearing on the 
suffrage, both for the times at the beginning of the 
Republic as for the present day. 

When the founders of the Republic confirmed the 
right of every grown-up man to vote, under the new 
State Constitutions, the conditions were so favorable 
to the requirements of this right that they were fully 
justified in their action. These favorable conditions 
were that state of material, educational and senti- 
mental equality which existed at the inception period 
of the republic, in addition to the established habit of 
local self-government by vote. At that time an attempt 
at any unreasonable restrictions in this respect would 
have been resented as a violation of the social and 
political facts, as an insult to the spirit floating in the 
air. How differently we stand to-day in this respect ; 
how largely we have lost this fundamental condition 
of a true republic ! 

Let us now determine the application of this 
practical degree of Liberty and Equality to the duties 
of self-government, of citizenship. The Personal 
rights side we can neglect, as being well understood 
and conceded in cur country. The Political Side re- 
solves itself into the question : What are the qualities 
of citizenship required to entitle one to its possession? 
The Author believes the decision should be based on 



XATJOXAL EVOLUTION 49 

two qualities only: character and understanding; 
race, nationality, creed, property, color and sex should 
alike have no voice in it. To disbar on any of these 
grounds would be in violation of the above conceded 
Personal rights of all sane men and women ; it would 
be in pursuance of impulses inspired by ignorance, 
hatreds and prejudices that must have no place in the 
adjustment of this great question. The principle 
enunciated would establish genuine political equality; 
the real, the true kind, so far only partly realized. 

But who is to be the all-powerful and infallible 
arbiter of the correctness of this assertion about 
Character and Understanding? A king, the greatest 
on earth : human reason, aided by his able counselors : 
Common Sense, Truth, Justice, the sense of equity 
derived from the experiences of life. These agents 
enable us to decide infallibility that Character and 
Understanding alone can be the tests of citizenship in 
a self-government by the people, based on the prin- 
ciples of Liberty. All personal rights being granted 
as per se, ability of Performance only remains to be 
determined. This involves moral qualifications, i. e., 
Character, and the necessary knowledge of the sub- 
ject, i. e., Understanding. In character we have the 
right to claim such moral equipment on the part of 
the voter and such a record of law-abiding conduct as 
would, by the common standards in these matters, 
entitle him to be entrusted with the privilege of citizen- 
ship, and guarantee its exercise in honesty and self- 
respect. In understanding we have the right to claim 
such an age of the voter as to insure not only the full 
possession of his independent reasoning faculties, but 
also a fair measure of practical experience in the prob- 



50 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

lems of life, and that amount of seriousness which is 
necessary to sober judgment. 

This age lies, by common knowledge, beyond that of 
mere physical maturity, and should for men not be un- 
der twenty-four years, and for women not under thirty 
years, the latter for reasons which will be discussed in 
the chapter on Suffrage. In addition to these require- 
ments of mature and sober judgment, Understanding 
is made up of a good general knowledge of our political 
system, State and National, the history of the country, 
the details of elections, and of the government of the 
city in which the voter may reside. Also, and not 
least, it must include a fair knowledge of the argu- 
ments advanced by the opposite parties on the leading 
public questions. 

This statement of what should be required of the 
citizen in personal and political equipment must appear 
to all as most reasonable. To demand less seems irra- 
tional, for how could he with less of Character and 
Understanding vote conscientiously and intelligently? 
That this standard calls for at least a Grammar-School 
education is evident ; no lower educational test should 
be required of the native-born citizen, and a practical 
equivalent of the foreign-born. 

This list of requirements will to many seem beyond 
the time and capacity of the average voter, but this 
is not the case. The material outlined looks more 
formidable than it is. It could be made the subject 
of instruction in special free day and evening schools, 
as part of the public school system, and it is suscep- 
tible of much simplification by means of charts and 
models. 

How would such a test for citizenship be applied in 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 51 

practice? Naturally some special arrangements would 
be required for its gradual introduction, but when 
fully organized the system would occasion no trouble. 
Oral examination would be an exception, probably 
confined to aliens ; in the majority of cases the above 
civic school certificate, accompanied by an age and 
character certificate from the employer or other com- 
petent person, would supply the necessary qualifica- 
tion. 

Once established, these tests would exclude none 
but the wholly undesirable, those unworthy by every 
reason and right to be citizens in a self-governed 
Republic. Nor would their number be so large as to 
create an unsafe disproportion between voters and 
non-voters, since the admission of a million or two of 
qualified women-voters would add to the electorate 
not only numbers but an element of the highest value. 
Moreover, the removal of all political disabilities of 
race, nationality, creed, property, color and sex would, 
at one stroke, efface a number of tormenting problems 
from our political tablet. 

Thus would we pay full tribute to both justice and 
reason ; express at once our conviction of the inalien- 
able right of man to personal liberty and self-govern- 
ment, by according it to all in prinxiple, as also the 
correct appreciation of our political inheritance and 
wise conception of the future by elevating the standard 
of the voter to a point that would enable him to prop- 
erly exercise the duties of his great political privilege 

The application of these proposition^ to the present 
situation in the country will follow in the later chapter 
on the Franchise. 



Considered from the point of view of abstract phil- 
osophy. Liberty, in the largest sense, is really a matter 



52 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

of everyday-want of certain agreeable and rational 
features of personal liberty, many of which are com- 
patible with and exist in monarchical forms of govern- 
ment. Nor does that extreme exaltation of which we 
have spoken seem in due proportion to the actual 
realization with which we content ourselves, nor to 
the excrescences and abuses which we seem satisfied 
to countenance. The actual liberty which we have 
exhibits itself, too often, in the shape of license of 
every kind ; of a spirit of flippancy and easy tolerance 
of political abuses, of a low standard in methods, dis- 
honesty in office, favoritism, etc., etc. In all that human 
kind attempts performance seems to fall short of 
promise, enthusiasm and courage to outrun prudence 
and experience ; so that to be just in our estimate of 
ourselves and others, all effort and achievement should 
be gauged by the possibilities of the situation and the 
point of view .of the actors. 

We must learn to consider all political, social and 
other questions from the objective point of view also, 
and not merely from the subjective one of our own 
history, aims and ideals. Happiness, which is the goal 
of all this striving in the world, is essentally relative; 
it depends upon the idea, at least in all spiritual mat- 
ters, which are so large a part of its mysterious entity. 
Material happiness, however, is not a theory ; we know 
when we are content and happy in that sense, or have 
attained to it as closely as we can hope. But spiritual 
happiness, mental restfulness and moral contentment 
depend largely on the satisfying of theories of life in 
general and of social and political ideas in particular, 
which we have set up as our standards and aim. 

Thus, for example, can a German or an Englishman 
who fully believes that a Constitutional Monarchy of 
the modern type is a satisfying form of government, 
well adapted to many leading traits of human nature 
and capable of producing a dignified, prosperous and 
well-balanced national existence, be perfectly happy in 
that state, while we believe that nothing but our own 
form of government can afford to us that same state 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 53 

of spiritual satisfaction. Political contentment is, 
therefore, much like religious contentment ; they both 
depend on the realization of a program of ideas .and 
Conceptions which an Individual or a People have 
made their own. It is by the contentions and argu- 
ments raised by these contrasts, now by words of per- 
suasion and now by guns of compulsion, that the 
general onward-march of mankind towards a higher 
level of civilization is achieved. 

These reflections should make us not only more 
appreciative and tolerant towards other forms of 
government, but also more conscious and proud of the' 
fact that our Republican Institutions stand before the 
world more for the exemplification of the great prin- 
ciple of personal right and dignity than for any 
special practical benefits over Constitutional Monarch- 
ies like those of England or Germany. We must admit 
that many of the material advantages which exist here, 
and the greater opportunities which our country offers 
to the Individual, do not emanate so much from our 
political institutions as from our favored economic 
situation, the richness and vastness of the country, 
its great seaboard and fine rivers, its healthful climate 
and" stimulating air and, above all, the sparseness of 
the population in proportion to the area, which leaves 
elbow-room for all and for many more to come. That 
to these our natural advantages, additional effect is 
given by our free and democratic state, by absence of 
arbitrary rule and dictation, oppressive taxes and 
onerous supervision, such as a paternal monarchial 
government might deem necessary to impose is fully 
understood and acknowledged in Europe. 

As each people's Future roots in its Present, and its 
Present in its Past, its achievements must be judged, 
not by political and social theories alone, but by all 
the general facts of its position and history. So re- 
garded, that which from certain absolute points of 
view r may seem little and imperfect, may, relatively 
considered, appear as a noteworthy attainment in 
National endeavor. 



54 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

(c) THE CONSTITUTION.— THE LAW 
A written Constitution for the establishment and 
conduct of a government is necessarily an instrument 
of a two-fold purpose. It must define the general prin- 
ciples and character of the intended government, the 
source of power and manner of exercising the same, 
and must also create and define all the multifarious 
ways and means of general administration. The 
framers of the Constitution had at their hands the 
charters and statutes of colonial self-government, the 
Articles of Confederation and the various charters and 
enactments which make up the English Constitution, 
to guide them in their work. But the requirements of 
the proposed Federal administration, as they ' had 
manifested themselves under the Confederation, 
obliged them to design, practically, a new and original 
plan of democratic government, unlike any that had 
ever existed before. 

There were available to them for study the Con- 
stitutions of the Greek and Roman republics, of the 
Italian and German City republics and of Switzerland. 
These, no doubt, afforded many ideas in reference to 
the division of powers and their relation to each other, 
the character of the ludcial machinery necessary, and 
other points of detail. 

All the same it required political inventive genius 
and practical statesmanlike qualities of the highest 
order to weld all this material into a fabric capable of 
solving entirely new conditions. Fortunately for the 
young country these abilities were possessed in ample 
measure by a brilliant galaxy of her own sons, who 
produced a work of elasticity, intrinsic wisdom and 
enduring strength. The tortuous course of this work in 
the Constitutional Convention and the many misgiv- 
ings by which it was accompanied are facts well- 
known. The making of the Constitution was in many 
points a compromise of the conflicting interests and 
jealousies of the several States, but this very circum- 
stance has proven no mean element of its strength. 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 55 

It is not the purpose of this article to go into the 
details of the Constitution to any extent, as we are 
more particularly concerned with the general ideas 
involved, in reference to the later recommendations of 
reform. The power is stated very clearly at the out- 
set as emanating from the people of the united 
states; it is divided into a Legislative, Judicial and 
Executive branch represented, respectively, by The 
Congess, The Supreme Court and The Presidency. 
The People and The United States, dating as they do 
from the period of the Confederacy, are acknowledged 
as pre-existing, likewise that first tentative, mainly 
defensive and sentimental Union of States, actual in 
many ways but not fully formed and declared, which 
had fought for Independence. The main purpose of 
the Constitution is declared at the outset of the docu- 
ment to be "to form a more perfect union," etc., it was 
more a plan for definite federation and for a system of 
complete federal administration than for the official 
creation of self-government. That, in fact, was in full 
existence at the time in the several States. 

Two facts will elucidate this point more fully, and 
also throw additional light on the subsatnce of the two 
preceding articles of this book. In the first place the 
Constitution in its original form, does not anywhere, 
in so many words, establish and declare the right and 
duty of the Franchise; it says, in its later amendments, 
who are citizens and shall have the vote, and who of 
them shall not be deprived thereof, but does nowhere 
distinctly state and create that right as a National 
feature of self-government. In the second place, while 
the Constitution, together with all future federal laws 
and treaties to be enacted, are distinctly stated to be 
thenceforth the Supreme Law of the Land, it does not 
anywhere mention the then existing civil and criminal 
law. 

It speaks several times of the Law and the Common 
Law, meaning, of course, the whole of the laws in use 
in the States, but does not anywhere distinctly and in 
so many words declare what that Law is, recognize or 



56 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

authorize it, or say in what documents, book or writ- 
ten code it is set forth. The reason for these omissions 
is plain and has already been indicated : The States, 
as independent Commonwealths, had preceded the 
plan for Federal Union by a number of years. Natur- 
ally, from the first outbreak of hostilities in 1775, or 
very soon thereafter, the authority of England was 
disregarded in the several colonies, and independent, 
new. State Governments were instituted to take its 
place. These all framed their separate Constitutions, 
chiefly based on the Colonial charters and laws. 

Thus this transition from colonies to States was 
more one in name and in persons (officials) than in 
essential form and fact. The general institution, civil 
rights and details of English Colonial Government 
were incorporated and continued with few changes in 
the Constitutions of the new States. They included 
the practice of the Franchise, and this needed only to 
be confirmed and extended from Colonial to State 
affairs, thereby creating full State-citizenship, to be- 
come the established foundation of National self- 
government by its agglomerative effect. This was 
done by the new Constitutions in the different States 
and, hence, the Federal Constitution had no need to 
declare itself on Avhat was already an accomplished 
fact, moreover one over which it had no authority 
whatever. 

For, while the Constitution created a National 
State, the civil and political rights of the people were 
already in existence in the separate States. And, in 
effect, the Constitution does not provide for any really 
national vote ; the only truly national officials to be 
elected by the people are the President and Vice 
President, and these are voted for not personally and 
nationally but through individual "Electors" in each 
State, in other words by a combination of State elec- 
tions. The representatives in Congress, while in a 
sense National Officials are in their elective character 
State Delegates, chosen in State elections ; similarly 
the U. S. Senators, elected by the State Legislatures. 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 57 

In the case of the Law the English common law, 
Penal Code and the Colonial legislative enactments 
were confirmed and continued in the new States as the 
basic codes for the exercise of Civil and Criminal 
Justice ; much as the Old Britons themselves con- 
tinued the twelve tables of the Roman Law as their 
fundamental Code after the Romans had withdrawn. 
The new State Constitutions had also enacted a com- 
plete mechanism of administration for the old and the 
new laws required. Thus, this matter of the Law, 
also, was a settled and established practice when the 
Federal Constitution was drafted ; hence, it is silent' 
on the subject, except by reference, and confines itself 
to the erection of a Law Structure exclusively for the 
purposes of the Federal Union. The Constitution is, 
therefore, remarkable as much for what it says not as 
for what it does say, and is in that way itself the best 
witness of its historical position and real nature. 

This procedure of taking-over the English Law 
under a change of political power and institutions, 
opens up an interesting historical perspective. The 
Law. as the very fountain-head of civilized life, whose 
authority must be undisputed to be effective, must 
itself have authority, or better, authorization for 
being. What is this authorization? In times immem- 
orable it emanated from systems of crude religion 
and ethics, the original sources of all our moral per- 
ceptions, and was promulgated and executed by the 
"king" as both political and ecclesiastical chief. From 
these early beginnings it developed into definite codes 
and tenets, with many strange vagaries and frequent 
changes as mankind progressed in intelligence, relig- 
ious beliefs and political institutions. Gradually the 
'"Church" became the main sponsor of the law ; it made 
its recognition and protection its essential concern, 
emphazing the religious or Divine elements of its 
origin to the fullest extent. It confirmed the sacred 
oath upon the Bible, or affirmation upon the Talmud 
and other foundation-books of religious systems, as 
f he mainstay of respect for the Law. of its efficacy and 



58 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

faithful execution. To this powerful agency was later 
allied the hereditary office and authority of the King 
by divine right under the sanction of the Church, a 
combination which represented the highest embodi- 
ment of constituted authority ever attained, and like- 
wise the highest Authorization of the Law that it is 
possible to effect. 

Thus in English Colonial times this authorization 
rested directly in The Crown and in the Established 
Church, bound to them and they to each other by 
solemn oaths and impressive public ceremonies. This 
vested and aesthetic authority of the Law disappeared 
when the domination of England ceased ; it retreated 
across the seas with her soldiers and her bishops. And, 
while colonies changing into States could certainly 
adopt the existing Law in form and substance, its 
former understood and visible authorization had been 
removed. What took the place thereof? Naturally, 
the inherent and fundamental source of all power in 
the new Republic, that which replaced the King of 
England and his Church, i. e., The People of the 
United States and — The Bible. The Statute Laws, 
beginning with the Constitutions, State and Federal, 
are created and authorized by the Sovereign People ; 
but in the absence of any established or recognized 
National Church or other Ecclesiastical authority, 
there remained of that potent moral influence only the 
general religious- convictions of the people and the 
oath upon the Bible as a moral and spiritual founda- 
tion of the Law. 

But the Oath, resting on the general belief in a 
Supreme Being and in punishment after death for 
sin (lie) wilfully committed, but barren of other and 
more detailed religious declarations and devoid of 
emphasizing ceremonies, has degenerated largely to 
a mere compulsory formality, dissociated from its 
original meaning, character and purpose. For those 
who, from lack of definite religious belief object to the 
taking of the oath, a simple affirmation to speak the 
truth is presented as a valid alternative. In regard to 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 59 

the Common Law, the traditional unenacted Law, it 
rests with us simply upon popular consent. In form, 
therefore, and much of its practice, our law can be said 
to have, practically, lost the religious b.asis of its 
authority and to rest almost exclusively on its secular 
authority derived from the enacting power, the People. 
As this authority is essentially intangible and shifting, 
not represented by any permanent "figurehead" such 
as a King would be, the Law, here, rests on a less 
stable foundation than is desirable. In consequence 
it is fast assuming the character of the deficient forces 
which give it life. 

This absence of definite ethical authorization of the 
Law, and of visibly expressed authority and dignity 
by suitable ceremonial, is a defect in our system not to 
be regarded lightly. Additional influence for good re- 
sults from such association ; the power of symbolism 
and aesthetic expression are effective and appropriate 
even in a republic, if kept within reasonable bounds. 
The U. S. Supreme Court and the State Supreme and 
Appellate Courts are dignified Bodies in their methods 
and environments, but they do not so much express 
The Law itself as its administration, which is not 
entirely the same thing. The author believes that an 
effect of great public value could be gained in this 
direction by the creation of National and State 
Chambers of the Law, which, in specially designed 
fireproof structures, would house "the Law of the 
Land." set forth in magnificent volumes of the highest 
art. L^pon these volumes, which would be the authori- 
zation, as to text, of all the law books of the country, 
the oaths of office could be taken of all our principal 
civil and military officials, who would thus soon be- 
come a very numerous "Legion of the Law,'' pledged 
to its loyal support and defense. It would create a 
definite, living, continuous expression of the popular 
rower as the foundation of the Law. 

To return to the subject of the Constitution it is 
imporant. in view of the proposed extensive amend- 
ments, to realize what were the country's general con- 



«0 N4TI0NAL EVOLUTIOX 

ditions under which it was framed, in the years from 
about 1785 to 1789. For that period was like the stage 
upon which the play would have to be acted, it deter- 
mined the perspective view of the future which The 
Fathers were able to form and for which they had to 
provide. 

As we know the total population of the States at the 
end of the War of Independence was about four 
millions of people. They were distributed in widely 
scattered districts, with large areas of unoccupied 
lands between the towns, hamlets and farms. The 
public roads were few and poor. It was a good day's 
journey from New York to Philadelphia, and two to 
Boston ; there were no railroads, steamboats or tele- 
graph lines. In industries most everything was hand 
work, as the steam-engine had not then been intro- 
duced. There were water-pow r er mills and wind-mills, 
and all the simple mechanical contrivances ; shipbuild- 
ing was done at different points ; a post-office system 
had been commenced. 

Educationally the people were fairly well situated. 
They had the hand-power printing-press, published 
newspapers and some books ; there were good com- 
mon schools everywhere and quite a number of higher 
.schools and colleges. The love of learning was spread- 
ing fast, and many books were annually brought over 
from England and France. Taste for the arts of 
Painting, Sculpture and Architecture had also begun 
to make its appearance. While this general situation 
looks to us moderns very primitive, it was not so 
relatively to our forefathers who, looking back over 
their own history of development from the early settle- 
ments, felt their country and times possessed of the 
spirit of progress, and destined to experience a rapid 
advance in every line. 

Yet, could they possibly foresee the wonderful prog- 
ress the country actually made even in the first fifty 
years of its existence, not to mention up to our day? It 
was impossible. The immense economic and social 
changes wrought by the arrival of the steam-engine, 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 61 

the steam-boat and railroad and telegraph, joined to 
an ever-growing immigration of every variety of 
nationality and character, could not possibly have been 
foreseen. The effect of these influences upon the 
National life was great and has become ever greater 
down to our present day. How has the Constitution 
met these changing conditions; how has it endured?' 
It has met them grandly ; it has endured wonderfully ! 

Framed with remarkable forensic ability, the Con- 
stitution has been tested in the furnace of time and 
been found wise, elastic and strong. It has success- 
fully met all that concerns the essential character and 
needs of the federal body politic, all the perplexing- 
issues of advancing times. It has required some amend- 
ments, i. e., additions made necessary by the important 
phases of our National existence, but with their assist- 
ance has achieved the stability and welfare of the 
country to this day. 

Now, however, we have arrived in the midst of those 
alarming developments and deep-seated evils, which 
have been described in the Introductory Article, and 
which call for changes in the Constitution more 
extensive and radical than any heretofore required. 
These new conditions have already led to a certain 
disrgard of its wording to a "stretching" of its mean- 
ing in the attempt to meet them ; a fact so grave that 
it alone justifies amendment. In the Author's opinion 
we should not hesitate about making these changes,, 
once their necessity is fully comprehended by the 
People. The original foundation is broad and strong,, 
we need not fear to build upon it. Every Constitution 
requires amendment from time to time to meet new 
situations and necessities ; "the latter are imperative,, 
a natural development in the life of a People and can- 
not be suppressed, neither can they be satisfied by in- 
adequate temporary measures. We should particularly 
not allow ourselves to be deterred from this great 
work of reform by filial sentiment, false pride or ideas 
of a "sacred inviolability" of this document ; for, 
guided by good judgment, which we may reasonably 



62 XATIOXAL EVOLUTIOX 

believe to possess, we can pay full tribute of respect 
and gratitude to the Fathers of the Constitution and, 
at the same time, adapt their great work to the modern 
needs of their sons — ourselves. 



(d) AUTHORITY AND DIGNITY IN GOVERN- 
MENT. — STABILITY AND ORDER. — 
ANARCHY.— SOCIALISM 

The general object of all government is to establish 
order, peace and security, and to do all that is possible 
to promote the general welfare and greatness of a 
country. Whatever the power be, however located and 
exercised it must possess authority, must be respected 
by the governed, to be effective. Authority is inde- 
pendent of the system or idea of a government, as it 
emanates more from qualities of personal character 
and equipment than from political principles, so that 
from this point of view there may be bad republics and 
good monarchies, as easily as the reverse ; for, the 
republican system by no means excludes the personal 
equation. 

Some of the difficulties of our republican system are 
revealed by these considerations. While we elect our 
officials, we do by no means elect all of them, nor is 
there any positive guaranty that those whom we do 
elect are the best equipped for their positions. The 
power of The People is both limited and unreliable. 

Beyond the direct elective offices there are all those 
indirect elective and appointive offices ; i. e., the United 
States Senators, the Cabinet officers, the Justices of 
The Supreme Court, Generals of the Army, Admirals 
of the Navy, etc., through whom power is exercised 
and on whose efficiency Authority depends.' In Euro- 
pean monarchies a similar, even larger list of offices 
arc similarly appointive, but there Public service is a 
high honor and a guaranteed life-occupation. This 
changes the whole situation and reveals our defect, for, 
reasonable permanence of positions is the very essence 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 63 

of authority. The mere knowledge that the President, 
State Governors, Representatives and all other im- 
portant short-term officials are compelled to relinquish 
their work before they have had time to master the 
intricate, details of their routine work, not to mention 
the inauguartion of improvements in service, etc., 
depresses the incumbent's higher ambition and spirit, 
and affects the prestige that should attach to their 
positions in the mind of the Public. The short term 
robs the office of incentive, dignity and opportunity; 
it belittles the man as well as the office ; it undermines 
the efficiency of the public service and breaks down 
the People's pride and confidence in their institutions. 
The later chapters will bring a further discussion of 
this subject. 

In reference to The Law, this matter of authority 
and stability was developed at some length in the pre- 
ceding article. In a general way our government's 
effectiveness is seriously interfered with by great 
looseness in these important principles. The kaleido- 
scopic character of our administrations in City, State, 
and Nation makes the seat of power itself appear 
evanescent, uncertain. We must positively introduce 
more stability into our methods. In Law and Legisla- 
tion nothing seems to be certain,, positive and durable; 
everything seems open to revision on the slightest pre- 
text. This facility in amending or repealing enact- 
ments has produced a bewildering array of statutes, 
incomplete or contradictory ; it has engendered a spirit 
of haste and recklessness in Legislation detrimental to 
useful and reliable work. 

Xo country on the earth presents a parallel to our 
conditions in this respect. Above all else Law should 
be short quick and decisive. We have too much law 
altogether; we rush along at every legislative season 
to make more laws of the same ill-considered sort ; 
worst of all, their proper enforcement is as uncertain 
as their sense and purpose. The public has reached 
a condition of resigned indifference in this grave 
matter ; it knows that at every session of Legislature 



64 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

or Congress there may be changes or repeals. Can we 
wonder at the fact that The Law is losing in respect 
and authority? Some very instructive remarks on this 
subject were made by the Hon. Jas. Bryce, British 
Ambassador, and author of that excellent work : "The 
American Commonwealth," before The Bar Associa- 
tion of New York some few months ago. 

To make Authority truly effective it must be accom- 
panied by dignity, as its visible expression. The 
aesthetic sense of man demands that anything that is 
important in its idea or object should be visibly so 
expressed, and thereby exhibited and emphasized to 
that branch of our faculties which are only second to 
the reasoning powers for understanding the nature of 
the world around us. This trait involves all those 
agencies capable of investing a public office and its 
incumbent with graces and distinction, in due pro- 
portion to other similar higher and lower offices. They 
may be distinction by style of habitation, equipages, 
costume and special insignia ; by all that we know of 
ceremonial, pomp and circumstance associated with 
the exhibition of power and authority. 

These are powerful factors in sustaining authority 
in goverment with a large body of the people ; they 
satisfy a universal trait of human nature that no ex- 
treme theories of "democratic simplicity" can ever 
suppress. We have abundant evidence among us that 
our people are becoming possessed of this sentiment. 
Its Growth should be encouraged, for it operates to the 
public good when kept within bounds of reason and 
good taste. 

We may as well acknowledge the fact that human 
nature traits, ethics and aesthetics, are independent of 
governmental systems ; a man is a human being first 
before he is a member of any certain form of political 
institution. The French, for instance, now a Republic 
since 35 years, and as much as we committed to 
popular rule, being a very artistic people do not 
hesitate to decorate their President with a tri-colore 
sash, brocaded hat and emblazoned order, as the 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 65 

visible insignia of his high office. In many other direc- 
tions they accord to appropriate ceremonial and out- 
ward expresson of official dignity the proper .place in 
their public life. What would one think, for instance, 
of a priest or clergyman officiating in the same dress 
in which he appears on the street ; or of the Judges of 
the U. S. Supreme Court sitting without official in- 
signia and distinction, one in a grey suit, the next in a 
black suit, the third in a blue suit, etc. The idea in- 
volved is the same in all cases where official dignity 
and authority call for proper aesthetic expression. 

Xo one need be alarmed by these suggestions. In 
this, as in other similar directions, the paramount idea 
can be manifested and satisfied in a variety of propor- 
tions; where simplicity reigns in general, and very 
properly so, but little is required to create distinction, 
but that little should not be withheld. We have made 
some commendable progress in these matters in recent 
years ; and this trend should be continued, that the 
increasing importance of our country may in future 
obtain fuller and more self-conscious expression, both 
at home and abroad. 

Equally as detrimental to authority and Dignity as 
the short-term tenure of office is the retirement of 
officials from high positions to assume such of a lower 
grade. Xo retired President of the United States 
should ever be permitted to act in any other active 
political capacity at home ; nor should he become an 
Ambassador of the United States to any foreign 
government. The only field left open might be that 
of arbitrator in X^ational or International disputes, 
of delegate to International conferences, or purely 
honorary consultative positions of high public trust. 
Any re-entry of an ex-President into the ranks of pro- 
fessional or ordinary activity should be made im- 
possible. As such a course might cut of! necessary 
income from the one concerned, every ex-President 
should be tendered by the Nation the privilege of a 
liberal pension, to enable him to live in a degree of 
dignified retirement befitting his former high position. 



66 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

This idea was not very long ago set forth by the late 
Grover Cleveland in his usual lucid manner, and 
should be made the policy of the Nation. He has, also, 
furnished us with an excellent example of dignified life 
by a retired President in his own practice. 

Likewise no Cabinet-officer, Ambassador, U. S. 
Senator or Governor of a State should ever be allowed 
to hold a lower political office. These suggested re- 
strictions apply with especial force to the Judiciary, 
from the inherent delicacy of its relationship to the 
Government, the Public and the Individual. It should 
not be permissible for any Justice of the U. S. Supreme 
Court, Appellate Divisions and Circuit Courts, nor of 
any State Supreme or Appellate Court to resign his 
position on the Bench with the object of re-entering 
the ranks of practicing lawyers, nor to enter the field 
of practical politics as a candidate for office, no matter 
how high, not even for the Presidency. 

Such action does violence to the dignity and con- 
fidential character of these Judicial positions ; it hurts 
the sense of propriety and is, politically, demoralizing 
in its efifect. A moment's reflection on this matter, on 
the possibilities of degradation of the austerity that 
should attach to the Bench ; on the temptation to 
abuse information and confidences, etc., must convince 
anyone of the impolicy of such recessions in the 
Judiciary, and also in the other branches of the public 
service. 

The Author, further, believes that, to insure a higher 
degree of the qualities discussed in this chapter and 
also to increase competence under increasing difficulty 
of positions, the age-standard of all our higher officials 
should be raised. This matter will be treated in detail 
further on. 



That no State can exist without orderly government 
should be self-evident to a normally constituted mind. 
Such orderly government can include every variety of 
socialism and single-tax plans. Anarchy, however, 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 67 

excludes social order and all forms of organized, united 
activity for the common weal. It means everyone for 
himself; it will destroy energy and a.nbition, wipe out 
civilization with its comfort, gratifications and em- 
bellishments, and lead straight to want, sloth and utter 
decadence. This, at least, would be its logical course ; 
but as the entire program is against human nature and, 
in reality, only a weak-hearted and imbecile protest 
against present conditions, the Author does not believe 
it could ever exist long enough to run its full course to 
destruction. Anarchy 'cannot be regarded otherwise 
than a conception of minds befogged and distracted by 
illogical doctrines. This, of course, is not stating the 
case fully ; the anarchists are only in favor of the des- 
truction of all existing governmental institutions, 
property rights and other inequalities on the ground 
of the entire system of our present civilization being 
too fundamentally wrong to be capable of reform. 
They wish to uproot, if necessary by violence, the 
present state of things to begin anew on better lines. 
Their enmity is really more against government and 
civilization in the concrete as we now have them than 
against these institutions in principle. They hesi- 
tatingly admit that after this hoped-for debacle and the 
re-adjustment of things on the basis of the equal divi- 
sion of wordly goods, some simple form, at least, of 
government would be required, suitable to the then 
hoped-for Utopian state of society. 

As to socialists of every grade and shade, they are 
believers in the rule of government to a greater extent 
even than is thought necessary or desirable in our 
accepted plan of self-government. With them the 
government should, more or less, be the owner of 
everything and also the employer of most everybody. 
In its extreme form it leads to the fully organized 
Communistic State. These theories represent the ultra 
development of the doctrine of the Equal Rights and 
Liberty of Man to which (the doctrine) we also sub- 
scribe, but with limitations of reason and worldly facts 
that should be patent to all. 



68 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

Socialism has its origin in Europe where it has 
arisen under unfavorable and unfair political and 
economic conditions, which have imposed great hard- 
ships of existence upon the working population. Of 
like conditions we have had no parallel here until 
within very recent years in our congested large cities. 
Their effect is to limit the opportunity for effort and 
progress of the individual worker to the minimum, 
and, they are accompanied by confirmed poverty and 
helplessness of the masses. It seems strange, at first 
glance, that these new and radical ideas should find 
such ready spread in this country of unlimited riches, 
of wide opportunities, of good wages and ready de- 
mand for every kind of labor. Yet, the fact is incon- 
trovertible that socialism is not confined to the 
foreigners who bring it here, but is fast seizing upon 
our native-born population, irrespective of race or 
origin. 

A large proportion of the foreign workingmen of all 
nationalities, who come to the United States, are 
socialists. They have a real grievance against Society ; 
they have suffered, and have been worked up to a 
frenzy about their wrongs. But under the influence 
of visionary and selfish leaders they are filled with 
ideas of the unreasoning and theoretical kind, away 
from the facts of life and human nature. Such ideas, 
unfortunately, seem to be particularly captivating to 
the lowly and uneducated ; they believe any remedies 
possible that plausibly promise ameliaoration of their 
condition, no matter how unsound and impractical 
they may be. Besides this kind of socialism they bring 
here witth them an entirely erroneous notion of the 
conditions in the United States, of what this free 
"Government by the People" really is like. 

They have an idea that work will be easy and money 
plentiful, and are disappointed to find that, here as 
elsewhere, success and property are the prizes of hard 
work, perseverance and thrift, with a little good luck 
to accompany them. Their illusions are not realized ; 
they find the same conditions of extreme riches and 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 69 

poverty, of unsteady employment, of spells of hard 
times and suffering that drove them from home. 
Being wholly incapabble of arriving at the proper 
grasp of our theory of humanity and government, 
they are confirmed in their socialistic tendencies 
brought from aboad and fall a prey to the professional 
agitator, who teaches them to use their freedom of 
speech and the right and power of the ballot to secure 
socialistic reforms. 

It is not very difficult, with these alluring ideas of 
greater equality, more rights and property, cheaper 
living and government protection of all kinds to obtain ' 
converts. The poor and helpless, the naturally un- 
thrifty, the incapable we have always with us, even 
in a republic. Thus it was inevitable for the pro- 
paganda to spread quickly to the native laboring and 
industrial classes ; nor was there any difficulty to unroll 
before them a lengthy and convincing arraignment of 
the short-comings of this republic. 

Up to a certain point Socialism is logical in theory, 
just, and beautifully humanitarian. In this state of 
society there is contemplated not only law, order, 
governmental authority, activity of every kind and 
the progress of man in every line, but also a fairly 
equal material situation of all the people. While full 
equality in property is not expected to be realized, 
there would be no very rich, nor any really poor and 
dependent people; all would live in fair comfort free 
from want, working in their chosen field with a con- 
siderable degree of absolute independence, rid of care 
and spiritual dissatisfaction. Such is the theoretical 
program. ) 

This happy state is to be brought about by the 
elimination of Capital in private hands, as we now have 
it, controlling all the agencies of production, raw 
materials and machinery as well, and substituting 
therefore collective ownership of these agents. There 
are a number of other far-reaching economic, social 
and governmental features connectetd with the social- 
istic plan, but it would lead us too far from our general 



70 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

purpose to go into these matters in detail. The 
thought of socialism is inspiring! True, it is a paternal 
and, in a measure, a philanthropic scheme, a scheme 
of all and everything for and by the people, a true 
scheme of the greatest good for the greatest number. 
It excludes, however, considerable of personal initia- 
tive and opportunity for individual achievement; but 
on the whole it is not a plan of life and government 
unduly submersive of manliness and self-respect. 

In the estimation of many able thinkers the great 
good to be obtained, i. e., the absence of the social 
curse of poverty, the consequent elimination of most 
of the suffering, vice, crime and ignorance which ac- 
company our present state of society, and, also, the 
equalization of opportunity to work in agreement with 
one's natural tastes and abilities, would be well worth 
the sacrifices entailed in other directions. These re- 
marks of the writer must be understood to apply only 
to that degree of socialism which, in the light of other 
inexorable considerations, it is believed possible and 
desirable to attain. This latter practical and accept- 
able program has not yet been formulated into a 
definite system. In a previous chapter the Author has 
pointed out the growing strength of Socialism in the 
United States by its gradual invasion of the Labor 
Party, creating thereby a situation full of danger to 
our present idea of a republic, unless met with sagacity, 
tact and firmness. The two movements are apart 
in name only, as far as the real gist of their respective 
aims is concerned. 

Meanwhile it cannot be denied that the general 
attitude among advanced nations is unmistakably 
towards a trial of, at least, the most plausible features 
of the socialistic program ; such ideas as Municipal 
Ownership of Public Utilities are in the way of being 
introduced, and extensions of that idea to State and 
National interests are being considered. But like all 
forms of government, including our own, complete 
socialism put in actual practice will also experience 
its vicissitudes and disappointments, and will speedily 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 71 

find its limitations. These are set by nature itself, 
which ordains the ultimately balanced, though periodi- 
cally shifting, deployment of all human traits and 
faculties on a pitiless basis of inequality of endowment 
and opportunity, for her own inscrutable purposes. 

The order of nature everywhere shows graduation 
and classification, i. e., order within diversity ; subordin- 
ation and domination, i. e., authority within individ- 
uality ; change and decay within progress and con- 
tinuity. All these are the essential conditions and 
principle of growth, of life ; total equality means stag- 
nation and death ! Society as a whole can, therefore, 
never even theoretically be on a basis of uniformity 
in position or scale, occupation and wealth. 

The only socialistic teacher who understood these 
elementary facts and built his system on the natural 
traits and needs of man, is the immortal genius Charles 
Francois Fourier. His social and industrial plan is 
one of great beauty and completeness ; and, properly 
instituted and adapted to modern conditions, it may 
yet prove the true foundation for solving the perplex- 
ities and unhappiness of mankind. 

There will always be classes of comparative wealth 
and poverty, ease and hard work, gentility and rough 
occupations, but there will never be perpetual sameness 
of conditions, no more than equality. thereof. A steady 
changing of forces and relationship are continually 
taking place in human affairs for purposes of recuper- 
ation, balance and progressive development. The full 
and extreme realization of Socialism implies negation 
and contradictions of these truths and is, therefore, a 
natural and philosophical impossibility. 

The point which, in view of the particular objects 
of this book, interests us most in these advanced 
doctrines of government is the fact that their adherents 
regard our Democratic system as defective in both 
theory and practice; as one in which the words Liberty, 
Equality, Justice are a hollow sham and mockery; 
one no better in practical results than many a mon- 
archy. They say we are ruled by a king and a tyrant 



72 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

greater than any in Europe or Asia and that his name 
is money, a kind of modern Golden Calf which we have 
made our idol and our ideal ; that we have classes and 
masses in this country the same as they are found 
elsewhere, and that the ''Brotherhood of Man" is find- 
ing but a poor exemplification in our political and 
social system. 

It is well at times to see ourselves as others see us. 
There are too many who, engrossed with their own 
affairs to the exclusion of all interest in public ques- 
tions, and entirely certain that ours is a government 
beyond improvement, refuse to take notice of either 
foreign or domestic criticism. This is to shut the door 
in the face of progress. It is useful for us to realize 
that our republic is not only being criticised by many 
who are convinced of its fundamental strength and 
soundness, like the author, and who strive only for 
betterment and advance, but that it is also being 
radically condemned by still others, who assert its 
essential faultiness of principle and the hopelessness 
of realizing by it a really true democracy. All govern- 
ment is human and imperfect, and subject to perpetual 
processes of change ; too narrow a point of view will 
prevent us seeing either where we stand or whither we 
are going. 



(e) NATIONALITY AND PATRIOTISM.— IN- 
DIVIDUALISM.— THE PRACTICAL AND 
NATURAL IDEAL 

In further elaboration of the ethical ideas of govern- 
ment, we are warranted in saying that Nationalism 
and Patriotism show two opposing tendencies, one 
towards extreme idealism, the other towards extreme 
materialism. The very word "extreme" indicates that 
the Practical National Ideal must lie somewhere half- 
way between these two. 

These tendencies at times run contemporaneously 
parallel and in ever growing opposition to each other, 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 73 

until a climax of contention is reached ; at other times 
a whole nation may follow first one impulse and then 
the other, in obedience to laws of natural and in- 
evitable reaction. As all these forces are dependent, 
largely, on traits of human nature and capacities, the 
well-balanced man should, logically, be typical of the 
well-balanced nation; and, in fact, neither the extreme 
idealist nor the extreme materialist represent the per- 
fection of manhood. That implies the unrestricted 
exercise and deployment of all the good that is within 
us, with the bad restricted to the greatest possible 
minimum. It must include ambition to excel, and the 
courage and self-assertion to prove the excellence ; for 
all these are legitimate human qualities which nature 
has made a part of us. But being, as we are, not all 
equally endowed and cast in the path of the same 
opportunities, nature itself not being everywhere 
equally propitious to man, there must unavoidably 
result inequalities of position, achievement, of prop- 
erty. 

In the earlier periods of civilization this right of the 
individual to self-assertion attached almost exclusively 
to particularly favored persons and classes. Gradually, 
as mankind advanced, the people as a whole came to 
the front and were themselves enthroned in power on 
the basis of the equal right of self-assertion. This was 
the advent of Collectivism, which is Individualism not 
dead but subordinated, limited, submerged in the 
multitude. But, true to all that has been said, this 
expanded equality could not ■ be absolute. It repre- 
sented, however, a powerful new principle with which 
to reach, gradually, a just measure of possible equality 
and general happiness. Individualism, though more 
diffused and changed in character, retained its former 
position as a rightful factor of political and social life. 

Progress has, therefore, been made both in the 
principle and practice of ameliorated life — and more 
is to come. Thus, in this our present age society 
recognizes the rights of individualism, but demands for 
it those obligations and limitations which, shall satisfy 



74 XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 

the claims of the common weal, as now conceded by 
an enlightened spirit of humanity. This involves, on 
the other hand, that the people as a whole, in order to 
mantain the just balance of these opposing tendencies 
and to prevent the deterioration of human character, 
shall understand and acknowledge the demoralizing 
effect of that extreme degree of socialistic paternalism 
which is repulsive to the instincts of healthy manhood, 
and disintegrating to the Individual alike. On this 
common ground mankind could settle down to the 
achievement of the practical ideal. 

What, then, may we propound as the true and prac- 
tical ideal in Nationality and Patriotism? Accepting 
the general principles and institutions of our Demo- 
cratc government as the basis, including those improve- 
ments which the contemplated Constitutional reforms 
would effect, and adding thereto the full recognition 
of the rights of individualism (within the limitations 
which have been described), we obtain the framework 
of the ideal political and social State. In it there could 
exist essential justice between man and man, a prac- 
tical equality of opportunity, unbounded activity in 
every field, material and spiritual satisfaction and 
general happiness of the whole people, thus attaining a 
more perfect National ideal than has yet been exempli- 
fied in ancient or modern times. To achieve this happy 
consummation in our Republic there would be required, 
in addition to the changes in our political system, such 
measures of industrial and socalistic reform as would 
commend themselves to the sober judgment of an 
enlightened and humanitarian Public opinion. 

In such a State the well-balanced man would be 
typical of the well-balanced Nation. Every legitimate 
activity of body, mind and soul could find opportunity 
for expression, and their demonstration would be ac- 
cepted as not only proper but imperative to individual 
and National greatness — the grand philosophy of 
Goethe, the broadest, deepest thinker of modern man- 
kind. 

In the larger political field there would be recognition 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 75 

of the right to take advantage of air favorable natural 
opportunities, geographical situation and material re- 
sources to demonstrate the qualities of a Nation beyond 
its own borders to the world outside. Such external 
activities have a salutary influence on patriotism and 
National virtue. They lift a Nation out of the slough 
of a too subjective self-contemplation into the higher 
sphere of legitimate friendly rivalry with others ; they 
wipe away the cobwebs of inter-necine political conten- 
tions by fixing the gaze on those larger destinies that 
involve the welfare of all mankind. 

For our own country the Spanish-American War 
and the acquisition of the Philipines, of Porto Rico 
and the Hawaiian Islands have done us an immeasur- 
able service in this sense, in proportion to which the 
sacrifices of life and treasure involved, though great, 
are insignificant. Situation and opportunity, naturally, 
are the basis and incentive of such external National 
employments. Greece would not have been Greece, 
and Rome not Rome, without the inviting theatre of 
the sea surrounding their countries. And need we 
point to modern history, to Spain and Columbus, 
Holland, France or England? Not to use such natural 
advantage would indeed be worse than folly, would be 
unmanly, imbecile. 

Opportunity, however, must be the fair offer of 
existing circumstances, not wrongfully and arbitarily 
created at the expense of others' rights. No mere 
wanton spirit of conquest and lust of empire, of 
material advantage at any price, can ever be counten- 
anced by this Nation, this future Nation of the most 
advanced plan of government and civilization. The 
inducements of permissible commercial enterprise and 
of rightful political ambition must alone be the hand- 
maids in this course. In this spirit rivalry in these 
fields will be highly salutary to our National character 
and existence. 



76 NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 



<£) ARISTOCRACY VS. DEMOCRACY.— POLIT- 
ICAL AND SOCIAL CASTES.— RULE OF 
THE PEOPLE 

In tmes not so long ago Society was strictly divided 
into classes called castes, usually four in number, the 
Ruling Aristocracy, the Warrior Class, the Priests, 
and the Common People. Between these there was 
little or no co-mingling, and the transition from one 
class to the other was difficult. These barriers were 
gradually broken down ; but even to-day we have in 
monarchial countries an aristocracy of Nobility and 
of Ecclesiastics, who enjoy special titles and privileges. 
It is only in Republics, where The People reign 
supreme, that all permanent distinction between per- 
sons by reason of birth or occupation have been 
abolished. 

The aristocracy of birth, inherited titles, lands and 
prerogatives and that of ecclesiastical functions derive 
their being and authority, respectively from the King 
and the Church, generally from both. In the case of 
•ecclesiastics, as far as European conditions are con- 
cerned, the fountain-head is either the Catholic Pope 
at -Rome, or the Czar of Russia for the Greek Church, 
the King of England for the Anglican Church, and the 
various Protestant Rulers for the other established 
Protestant Churches. The same close connection that 
we have traced between the King, the Church and the 
Law exists between these and the established aristoc- 
racies. . 

The one of Nobility concerns us more particularly. 
It is a society within a society, endowed with dis- 
tinction and privileges denied to the body of the people. 
Its origin dates back to the warrior-classes of antiquity, 
the chief of the Clan or Tribe who by virtue of superior 
intelligence and force of character, obtained by success- 
ful fights domination over his fellows, secured to 
himself and his heirs possession of large private 
domains, assumed titles and prerogatives. The multi- 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION IT 

plication of such small rulers or princes gradually 
produced a class of considerable numbers of varying 
degrees of influence and possessions. This led to 
unifications of interests, the grading of titles and 
privileges, and the appointment of a head or chief 
Noble as leader in wars and councils. This system 
attained its complete and very picturesque develop- 
ment in the feudal ages by which time it had evolved 
full Royal Power as its supreme pinnacle and expres- 
sion, and had also attached to itself the sanction and 
prestige of The Church, in exchange for it propagation 
and defense. 

Since those days, the powers and position of the 
aristocracy of Nobility have undergone considerable 
change. The consolidation of Kingdoms and Empires 
into distinct units of centralized government and the 
consequent reduction and final annihilation of the 
individual war-lord powers of the Nobles, together 
with the modern development of Nationality, the idea 
of the Modern State and of the Rights of The People 
as the ruling political factors, have gradually reduced 
the Nobles to the status of vested Landed Proprietors. 
They retain their guaranteed titles and class-privileges 
and hereditary succession, known as primo-geniture r 
as we find them to-day in all the European countries.. 

They continue, as a class, to devote their activities 
to the maintenance of the monarchy and the Church, 
and to serve their country in politics, diplomacy, the 
army, the navy and other lines ; many may now be 
found in the ranks of literature, science, art, explora- 
tion, sociology, even in industry and commerce. The 
old prerogatives of the Nobles have largely become 
obliterated, the only important political privilege left 
to them being the hereditary seat in the Upper Houses 
of the Constitutional Parliaments. All other public 
positions which the Nobility can now fill are subject 
to appointment by the Ruler or Parliament, or to 
election by the People. 

With this the question arises: What is the position 
of this aristocracy to-day, for good or bad, in the 



78 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

monarchies of Europe, and is it entitled to any esteem 
and recognition on the part of the people of a Republic? 
To answer this question justly we should first disarm 
ourselves of all those prejudices and animosities 
towards everything royal, monarchical and aristocratic 
to which allusion has been made in the beginning of 
this book. It has led us to conceive of the aristocracy as 
an institution of mercenaries and sycophants, of ar- 
rogant schemers against kings and people alike, given 
to lives of idleness, and indulgence. Much evidence, 
undoubtedly, can be produced to give color to this 
idea. The origin of many noble families is distinctly 
unsavory, their record devoid of merit. Their political 
action, has often been disastrous to their countries; 
their ranks have furnished conspirators, traitors and 
regicides in large numbers. Socially, many members 
of the aristocracy have been a disgrace to their order 
by their riotous and illicit lives. 

Much of this, however, was less the product of their 
caste than of the times. We must not forget the tur- 
bulence, violence and passion, political and religious, 
which has characterized the course of public events in 
•every country of Europe from the twelfth century to 
comparatively modern times. The struggle for re- 
ligious liberty, for Constitutional guaranties and popu- 
lar rights, for territorial possessions, for unification 
of nationalities, etc., has been one of such unremitting 
intensity, vicissitudes, wars and revolutions, in com- 
parison with which we are now living in an epoch of 
perfect serenity. Weighed in the scales of impartial 
fact, the Nobility of England, France, Germany and all 
Europe is not found wanting; they have, on the whole, 
deserved well of their countries. Up to very recent 
political times they were the most active, patriotic and 
only constructive element of these states; they fought 
their battles, conducted their diplomacy, furnished the 
dignitaries of the Church from their ranks; they were 
the patrons of art, science, investigation and explora- 
tion, were found in every move for progress, even of 
that for advancement and freedom of the people. 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 79 

We need but consider the favored circumstances of 
existence of this caste, i. e., freedom from want and 
hard toil, education, travel, refined surroundings, and 
allow due weight to the influence of heredity, to see 
that it would indeed be strange if they did not at the 
end of a long stretch of time possess many distinguised 
gifts of character, mind and personality that set them 
apart from the level of the ordinary toiler. Another 
point to remember is that, in their more recent history 
for the last three centuries about, they represent not 
merely an order by inheritance but also by merit. 
gained by their work for their countries' best interests 
in varied fields already mentioned ; also, that their ranks 
have been largely augmented by many men elevated 
into their class from the body of the people as rewards 
and distinctions for what they accomplished for the 
Nation or humanity.* 

Many statesmen, generals, scientists, artists and 
authors have thus been knighted by a grateful sover- 
eign and gladly so accepted by the people. In this 
process there is a graduated order of advance, depend- 
ing directly on increasing merit of services before the 
highest pinnacle can be reached. In the light of these 
acts we must concede that the Nobility, as a caste 
and an historical product of monarchies are entitled 
to recognition and esteem on the part, also, of demo- 
cratic peoples. 

As we are by history and race closely related with 
England, and as that country enjoys the most liberal 
form of Constitutional monarchy while still retaining 
an hereditary nobility, it is instructive to note the 
practical working of this combination there, at the 
present day. In effect we find the English Nobility, 
by their attributes of assured wealth, social position, 
high culture and quasi enforced leisure, to be a factor 
of the greatest National value that makes for stability, 
dignity, and conservative progress towards ever greater 
liberty and more extended popular rule. The heads of 
these noble families have the hereditary right to a seat 
in the upper English Chamber, The House of Lords, 



80 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

and are thus compulsorily drawn into the political 
arena and, as a rule, devote themselves with earnest- 
ness to these duties, many, by virtue of intrinsic 
abilities, becoming party-leaders, ambassadors, cab- 
inet ministers, and Prime Minister of the nation. 

The younger members of the Nobility have a career 
open to them in the army and navy, the Church, the 
adminsitrative and diplomatic service, and a political 
career in the House of Commons, by popular election. 
Hence, we find in the public service of that country a 
body of men of the highest honor to whom any thought 
of illicit pecuniary gain in connection with public 
office, of sordiness of motives or ambiguity of methods 
would be the height of moral degradation, an insult to 
their name and station. A political career to them is 
not only an honorable ambition but a noble public 
duty, to be done with disinterested devotion. For this 
they are well equipped, having money, time, educa- 
tional training and assured prospects before them ; 
hence, the sterling honesty and high moral tone of 
English public life, its stability, authority and dignity. 

In our Republic, and in any other, the absence of 
an independent class of wealth, leisure and culture, 
corresponding in position and aims to the European 
Aristocracy, is a great drawback to orderly political 
work. By orderly is meant above all honest, pure in 
motives and methods, qualities which in many ways 
are more important than ability. It is not so much 
from the lack of individuals capable of assuming this 
position that we suffer ; it is their unwillingness to 
hear the call to public duty, to take up political work 
as a vocation, that is our greatest weakness. Nor is 
the reason a lack of interest or patriotism but rather 
a feeling of impotency and distrust ; of being lost and 
crushed in the great maelstrom of our ignoble politics. 
They fear the contact with the small professional 
politician who rises from the lower ranks to his seat 
in the Legislature or in Congress, and in that climb 
has gone through the whole nasty mire of our City 
and County politics, with their trickery, graft and 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 81 

corruption, and who finds it impossible, at the end, to 
rise to a higher plane of duty and patriotism. 

In the English House of Commons, where Nobles 
sit with Labor delegates, there is no such feeling and 
situation. Politics over there are both a serious and 
an honorable business, and those who rise to positions 
in it are entitled to and receive the sincere respect of 
all. For the reasons indicated our rich and cultured 
class abstain from active politics, with few laudable 
exceptions, and we depend almost entirely on the ranks 
of Business and particularly the Law to furnish our 
higher grade of public men. But these classes, though 
brilliant in abilities and bristling with energy are apt 
to be deficient in the objective point of political view, 
in the breadth of ideas and historical feeling required 
for . directing the larger National issues and Inter- 
national policies. 

For this situation, as for so many others, the Reform 
of the Electorate is the only means of bringing about 
improved conditions by investing the profession of 
politics with greater respectability. An electorate of 
more uniformly high intelligence, information and re- 
sponsibility would create a purer atmosphere for 
political service that could not fail to attract the best 
men to the public work of the country, and make that 
work one of unmitigated honor. 



In a republic where the Rule of the People is the 

dominant idea, it is difficult for many to see the ethical 
and historical aspect of a King and Aristocracy. But 
we must allow that environment and habit are every- 
where powerful factors in shaping the. opinions and 
feelings of a people, be it in a republic or in a mon- 
archy. To most of us it appears almost incompre- 
hensible that intelligent and progressive Nations like 
England, Germany, Italy etc., should tolerate the .idea 
of a Personal Ruler who, although compelled to share 
his power with a Parliament, still has left to himself 
great prerogatives and who, moreover, exacts "allegi- 



82 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

ance," claims homage, inviolability of person, "Divine 
right" even, for his office. 

The only explanation of this apparently anomalous 
condition is that the King of these countries is an 
historical institution that represents, in one person, 
the authority, dignity and executive power of the 
State. To the more progressive the King is a Figure 
of habit, tolerance, and sentiment rather, than any 
literal embodiment of his other claimed attributes. 
Especially in England the office is more aesthetic than 
material. But on the. whole a large proportion of the 
people in monarchies feel a general sense of loyalty to 
the ruler who is to them a link in their centuries of 
National history. It is useless to quarrel with tra- 
ditions and sentiments in such matters ; our own 
Declaration of Independence contains expressions of 
respect for them. While the advance towards Democ- 
racy in the European Monarchies is distinct and strong, 
the People, as a whole, have not yet penetrated to the 
conscious and uncontrollable desire for complete self- 
government. Progress is taking place slowly and on 
conservative lines, and it is better for the final result 
to be reached in a natural manner than by violence 
of revolution. 

But the Rule of The People is doubtless the ascend- 
ant political principle of our times, and its sway over 
all European Nations at no distant day is probable. 
Nor need those fears of the "Seven-headed monster" of 
antiquity, The People, or more correctly The Mob, 
be now entertained as they were justly entertained to 
within a hundred years ago. The French Revolution, 
no doubt, made mankind terribly conscious of the 
truth contained in the simile of old. But there has 
since been a period of such unparalleled progress in 
education, discoveries, enlightenment, humanitarian 
efforts ; of /change in the whole status and processes 
of life towards equalization and diffusion of material 
ease ; in morality, temperance and self-respect on the 
wirt of all the peoples that the fears of violent out- 
breaks, of mob-rule, of anarchistic and communistic 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 83 : 

demonstrations with blood-shed, destruction of prop- 
erty and general chaos need no longer be entertained. 
That isolated troubles of this kind, by limited numbers 
and in scattered -localities may still take place is not 
disputed ; they may happen with us, and still more 
so in Europe, especially in Italy and Russia. 

But in this Republic the normal individual man, 
already in the enjoyment of improved conditions of 
existence and of a secure political status, feels that 
order and stability are his best friends, and that all 
further progress must be sought by peaceful and legiti- 
mate means. It will be by persuasive discussion, but 
more particularly by a Vote of a higher moral and 
educational standard, that our healthful advance 
towards a realization of the constantly enlarging con- 
ception of a "True and perfect Republic" will be made. 



(g) MODERX IDEA OF THE STATE.— PROP- 
ERTY AXD TAXATION.— DETAILS OF 
ADMINISTRATION 

As stated before, the primary objects of government 
are matters of administration rather than of politics, 
of domestic regulations to secure peaceful activity and 
civil order. Governments are, in first principles, for 
men and not the reverse, as here and there happened 
in history. A Nation or People is a result which arose 
originally out of a number of small aggregations of 
men, such as the patriarchal clans, tribal communities, 
the village parish, town, county. It is in these that 
the primary lessons of government were first learned 
and finally applied to increasing combinations of such 
units, until these reached the condition of National 
States, by consolidation of territory, languages and 
customs. 

The various features of administration increased in 
number and variety with the general advance of man, 
and in a long and tortuous history they show many 
changes of form and method, novel experiments, fail- 



84 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

ures and successes, under ever-changing political 
systems. Finally they have culminated in the modern 
practice of civil administration and law of our times. 
In this much identity of idea and methods has come 
to exist among the civilized nations whose develop- 
ment rests on the common foundation of the Roman 
Law and the Christian Religion. 

The various duties of government naturally involved 
outlay. To meet these public expenses it became 
necessary to impose charges upon the individuals com^ 
posing such communities, i. e., their lands, houses and 
other tangible possessions in graded, equitable pro- 
portions. This is Taxation; it is one of the arduous 
duties of government to devise its details and collect 
the moneys due under it. Its just regulation has been 
the study of all mankind ; its unwise and unjust appli- 
cation has been the source of conflicts and revolutions 
the world over. It has always proven a very difficult 
problem to design a system of absolutely equitable 
taxation ; and with the development of Society, in- 
dividuals and entire classes received unequal benefits 
from the uses of the funds collected by taxation, so 
that the ever-widening gap between the rich and the 
poor made taxation a perpetual source of strife, class- 
hatred and popular discontent. 

Parallel with the mechanism of civil administration, 
and determining much of its details, have run those 
larger forces of National Life that comprise the 
political form of a government. It means the par- 
ticular form, the character that the manifold functions 
of government are capable of assuming under the in- 
fluence of a concrete political plan, especially in its 
reference to the source and action of the inherent 
National power, whether a King and kingdom, an 
empire and Emperor — or The People and a Republic. 
It is one of the most interesting studies in history 
to trace this relationship between the political form 
and the practical work of government. Among the 
many variations which the political character of a 
State can assume, we find that the conception of The 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 85 

National State is one which has varied greatly as 
Peoples rose and fell in the scale of their patriotic 
ideals. At certain periods both Greece and Rome have 
shown it at its highest level ; while at other periods, 
when Empire had been reached, it became lost and 
absorbed in a multiplicity of interests, and in the 
satisfaction of wielding power. 

In the earlier ages the sense of Nationality seems 
to have remained confined to countries of small areas, 
and in the larger empires to have been absorbed ex- 
clusively by the ruling classes. Much of this is due 
to the great number of distinct peoples, on a small 
numerical scale, which composed them, the great 
variety of languages, customs, religions, which dis- 
tinguished these early empires. In them patriotism 
and nationality were local sentiments with the people 
at large ; the upper classes alone were able to rise to 
the conscious feeling of a unified empire, of a National 
State. These States were but agglomerations of parts ; 
the unification of the forces towards nationality, on 
the extensive scale which modern history shows, had 
not yet taken place. This process only began with 
the end of the Middle Ages through the gradual assim- 
ilation of related races and languages, of customs of 
daily life and of religious belief. Then came the occu- 
paton of definite circumscribed territories ; together 
with the gradual internal political progress from abso- 
lute autocratic monarchy and empire to Constitutional 
monarchy, to modern democracy. 

Under the action of these consolidating forces, and 
further stimulated by the impulse of political self- 
preservation in the acute rivalry of nations for greatest 
possible development, there arose, at last, the distinct 
conception of a People and their country as an entity, 
as a political individuality ; lanu and people as one 
idea: the modern state, in juxtaposition to other 
similar States. In this modern conception a country is 
not its mountains and rivers, fields and cities, nor its 
people alone ; it is all these together, and with language, 
racial characteristics and past history welded into one 



NATIONAL ErOLUTION 

distinct total of nationality. This thought was only 
possible on the basis of our advanced modern civiliz- 
ation with its wonderful material, intellectual and 
moral accompaniments, crowned by the elevated 
position in life of the individual man. It is an achieve- 
ment which, from all its premises, was impossible of 
attainment in any civilization of antiquity. 

It is self-evident that this modern conception of the 
State is not confined to any particular political form. 
It means a homogeneous Nation or People, completely 
amalgamated, or in the process of becoming so, in its 
own fatherland. The State may be a monarchy or a 
republic, or an empire like Germany or Japan. But 
it cannot be an empire of conquest in the form of the 
Roman, Greek or Asiatic empires of old, or of the 
empires of Charles V. and Philip II., or of the empire 
of Xapoleon the Great, or of the present Austrian 
empire and of Turkey ; for, these are or were merely 
aggregations of countries and peoples, in which the 
principles of union of purpose and nationality are 
absent. England, as the ''United Kingdom of Great 
Britain and Ireland" is a National State in this sense, 
because its immense foreign possessions, semi-inde- 
pendent in political status, are regarded but as colonies, 
and designated as her Colonial Empire. In such 
manner any country may hold colonial possessions for 
commercial purposes, or as stakes in international 
politics ; or as outlets for its surplus population and 
material activities, without thereby invalidating its 
title to a truly National State. The recognition of 
these ideas in modern international politics is a potent 
influence that makes for mutual respect, general prog- 
ress and "peace with honor" among Nations of the 
world. 



The right to individual property was one of the first 
foundation stones of civilization, as it emerged from 
the tribal or communal condition of holding property 
in common; for, with it came individuality, which 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 87 

meant incentive to work, energy, perseverance; the 
sense of acquisition, all leading to progress. Beginning 
with the separately-owned patch of land, some cattle, 
the simple tools of husbandry and the rude hut of its 
proud owner, it grew and prospered, bringing in its 
course all the manifold developments in methods, 
materials, inventions, discoveries, explorations of 
foreign lands etc., up to the present ramified state of 
industry and commerce. The right to property, to 
the guaranteed possession of the fruits of personal 
effort, and of the inherited and donated fruits of the 
efforts of others, carried along with it the material 
side of civilization. That this progress of man could 
have been equally secured on any basis of community 
of ownership the wildest flights of the extreme socialist 
would not dare to assert. The Anarchist neither 
asserts it nor wants it. 

Thus, property-right, including private inheritance 
and donation, together with the elementary ideas of 
moral conduct is, also the beginning of all law, criminal 
and civil. It developed the necessity of equity and 
justice, fostered self-respect and all manly virtues and 
brought about personal and public security. Joined 
in time to the benefits of settled religious and social 
institutions and to the steady broadening of man's 
faculties by the opportunity spread out before him, 
Property right was also an important factor of his 
intellectual, ethical and political progress. With the 
securing of property, established in fact and in law, 
came its unfeared acknowledgment and use, and, in 
time, its public listing and recording, all of which in- 
cidentally greatly facilitated the difficult work of 
taxation. 

The united private property of all the people of a 
country, together will all unworked National resources, 
is the Wealth of the State, the backbone of all under- 
takings, public and private, the credit of a Nation and 
the ultimate security for its public debt ; so that the 
entire system of property is both foundation and key- 
stone of the National State. That private property is 



8S NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

in the ultimate sense really State property, and so 
without any socialistic enactments, is plain and proven 
by history ; for, in cases of great stress, war, invasion, 
famine, the State can devise ways to secure this prop- 
erty for the public relief, unless it be itself in the 
throes or revolution and dissolution. With the applica- 
tion of progressive socialistic ideas, as already dis- 
cussed, there would take place a change in the propor- 
tion now holding between private and public property. 
But whether that system would produce an equal 
amount of total activity and, therefore, of total wealth 
is a question which actual experience alone can answer. 
In the practical details of government, National, 
State and Municipal, one of the most important prin- 
ciples is simplicity of methods and certainty of oper- 
ation, particularly so in regard to the Law and Legis- 
lation, avoiding everything that is superfluous, com- 
plicated, or contradictory. The necessity of these 
qualities becomes increasingly apparent from year to 
year, in the ever-augumenting volume of our industry 
and commerce, social and political activities. This 
subject has been argued in a previous chapter; it 
should receive the serious thought of our public men 
and of the people. Every legislative and legal process, 
the organization and details of work of every admin- 
istrative department should all be brought down to 
the greatest possible simplicity, speed and economy. 
All antiquated and doubtful laws should be expunged 
from the statutes, and some system devised avoiding 
the multiplicity and unreliableness which now exist. 
The creation of special commissions in each State, 
and of a National Commission for Federal purposes, to 
investigate this entire subject of simplifying and 
expediting the Public Service would be a boon for the 
country. 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 89 

C— THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL 
REFORMS 

L— THE PRESIDENCY AND VICE-PRESI- 
DENCY.— THE TERM OF OFFICE AND 
RE-ELIGIBILITY.— MANNER OF ELEC- 
TION. — PENSION. — AGE-QUALIFICA- 
TION 

The Presidency occupies a remarkable and unique 
position in our scheme of government ; it is clothed 
with initiative, executive and appointive powers of un- 
usual extent, greater than in the Presidency of any 
other republic, greater, in some respects, than those of 
a Constitutional Monarch. The Presidency pre-emi- 
nently represents and" expresses the source of inherent 
and original power in the republic: the people; and 
the conglomerate, immobile, indefinite and unorgan- 
ized nature of that source made it necessary, in the 
eyes of the framers of the Constitution, to locate 
somewhere a strong, visible, concrete delegation of this 
power, capable of quick decision and action and of ex- 
ercising authoritative influence upon the entire fabric 
of the government. This idea is a cardinal mainstay of 
our institutions, in which so much is indirect and dele- 
gated, entrusted to a large number of separate legisla- 
tive and executive bodies of short duration and ever- 
varying composition. The Presidency, in midst of this 
"moving political picture" is firm, permanent and al- 
ways at work or in operation, while the term of office 
lasts. 

Thus the Presidential power is, next to the Supreme 



90 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

Court, the most conservative element in our govern- 
ment. It is, in a measure, undemocratic and a tribute 
to the merits of one-man rule or monarchy ; but the 
practical wisdom of its political character, and its bene- 
ficial effect upon the general working of the govern- 
ment have been demonstrated. The satisfactory Con- 
stitutional scope of the Presidency (and Vice-Presi- 
dency as well) whether the incumbent be a man of 
brilliancy or of ordinary ability, conservative or pro- 
gressive, has been proven. Likewise the institution of 
a "Cabinet" of Departmental Secretaries, as active ad- 
ministrative heads and advisers of the President, and 
the exercise of the President's initiative and appointive 
prerogatives make, all together, a mechanism that fur- 
nishes, in principle, no grounds for criticism of the plan 
of this great office. Three changes only, but of far- 
reaching character, have been subjects of public discus- 
sion in regard to it : The term of office, re-eligibility 
and the manner of election. We will first consider the 
manner of election. 

It was fully in accordance with the intended political 
status of the Presidency that the election of the Presi- 
dent was made to be one directly by the people, at least 
approximately so, instead of by the National Congress, 
as in France, or by any similar indirect and delegated 
body. The President and vice-President are the only 
really National officials who are elected by popular 
vote, and therefore are the direct National repesenta- 
tives of the People at large ; for, the United States Con- 
gressmen and Senators, while principally National in 
their duties, also represent the special interests of their 
respective States. The President and vice-President,. 
on the contrary, represent the nation, the Federal 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 91 

Union exclusively ; and only by direct choice of the 
people themselves could this principle be effectively as- 
serted. The people 'feel this close, almost personal 
connection between themselves and these two chief 
officers of the country very clearly. They feel it, more- 
over, as astrong bond of union between the several 
States, the Presidential election being the only one in 
which all join together in one common object. 

The indirect election of the President and vice- 
president by a Congress would clearly weaken the 
above relationship and lessen, to some extent, the 
President's authority, if not his power; so that, as now 
constituted, this office and its companion may be aptly 
called "the pulse of the Nation." As the choice of a 
limited Assembly or Congress, circumstances of per- 
sonal character and political expedient might at any 
time make the President the tool, instead of the direc- 
tor, of its policy. The mere knowledge of the possi- 
bility of such a contingency would rob the Presidency 
of its present independence and prestige. 

As to the manner of election of the President and 
vice-President by a system of "Electors" in each State, 
and the Congress resolving itself into an Electoral 
Convention for the final decision, it is an arrangement 
that was necessitated by the fact, previously explained 
that, for reasons only partly clear, the Constitution did 
not create the Franchise in the ''National" sense, and 
could, therefore, not establish an absoluetly direct 
National election of the President and vice-President. 
(See under "The Constitution.") It left it to be de- 
vised by means of the State electoral right and ma- 
chinery, and by combining these results into a final 
"Maioritv choice" of all the States, i. e., of all the 



92 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

people, as laid down in detail in the Constitution. The 
general scheme of this system is probably as well 
conceived as any that could be designed under the con- 
ditions. In application it has undergone many 
changes from the original intent by the influence of 
Party Politics, and its details do not operate as 
smoothly as is desirable. It has worked, on the whole, 
satisfactorily, except in the peculiar circumstances 
attending the Hayes-Tilden election of 1876; but in 
that unfortunate controversy the trouble was due not 
to any theoretical fault in the system but to the 
"irregular" and turbulent conditions which prevailed 
in the three Southern States in dispute. 

A direct and "personal" popular vote for President 
and vice-President is, therefore, impossible in the 
present state of the law. It would require, to establish 
it, a Constitutioal Amendment creating direct National 
Suffrage, and a more complete Federal election law 
and machinery, than the merely supervisary one now 
existing. When we consider the vastness of such an 
organization to cover the entire country, and all the 
difficulties of its honest control we have reason to be 
well satisfied with the practical "Presidential Electors" 
plan provided by the Constitution. This Institution 
will share in all the benefits to flow from the raising 
of the standard of the Electorate and, thereby, of all 
officials. And it is reasonable to assume that further 
experience will devlop remedies for its minor defects 
and make the system entirely satisfactory. 

The other two questions advocated since many years 
are the term of service, and re-eligibility in direct suc- 
cession ; they are really one issue and will be here so 
treated. Reference should be had by. the reader to all 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 93 

that has been said in preceding chapters on the defects 
of the short-term tenure of office in all public positions ; 
for. this is both the practical and the ethical foundation 
of this queestion. 

The four-year term of office is a target of criticism at 
every recurring election. It is assailed, in the first 
place, on its own ground of insufficiency of duration to 
enable the incumbent to master the ever-increasing 
complexity of the National Government, and to im- 
press upon his administration his personal and his 
party's success. It is assailed, in the second place,, 
because, by established precedent, and in the absence 
of any definite contrary declaration in the Constitution,, 
the President is held to be re-eligible to office for a 
second term of four years, following immediately a 
term expired. It is not the re-eligibility in itself that 
is objectionable, nor the eight-year term of office 
which is sanctioned thereby, but the undesirable 
political situation that is created by this practice. 

The great increase of our population since the Civil 
War, the corresponding industrial and commercial 
growth and the enlarged domestic and foreign polit- 
ical interests make it apparent to what an extent the 
Presidential duties of to-day have augmented over 
former years. But even in the past, the shortness of 
the four-year term made itself manifest, from Wash- 
ington to McKinley, in the many instances of Presi- 
dents re-elected to a second term in order to retain' 
the services of a man who had proven his worth, or 
to secure the continuation of his and his party's policy 
towards legislative results. To this political factor, 
has come this other one of the enormously increased 
amount and variety of the President's duties. Wheni 



94 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

we join to his innumerable executive and appointive 
functions the obligation to familiarize himself with 
all the working details of the many governmental de- 
partments, so as to be able to inaugurate or approve 
changes of policy or methods, and add thereto his 
chief work of directing the general political interests 
of the country, it is seen at once that four years are 
insufficient, for the most able man that might be 
elected, to obtain a thorough grasp and arrive at a 
full control of this stupendous task. 

This situation is, however, made still more difficult 
and taxing by the prospect of the re-election for a 
second continuous term, adding to the above all the 
extra calls upon time and effort involved in this pur- 
suit of office. This applies not only to the President 
himself but equally to his party supporters in Con- 
gress and at large ; and the effect is to greatly check 
the active work of Congress in the third year of the 
term which, instead, is largely devoted to re-election 
politics. The effect of this is to induce an era of 
scheming and political "pernicious activity" for place 
in the Civil Service which, under the substantial rem- 
nant of the "spoils-system" that still obtains, is closely 
bound up with the fate of an administration. The in- 
fluence thus exerted is corrupting and disorganizing; 
it means uncertainty, indifference, laxity, venal prom- 
ises and bribery. These detrimental circumstances 
are so well known that it is not necessary to dwell 
upon them further. 

This general turmoil and excitement in the last 
year of an administration we do not escape entirely 
whether the incumbent President be a candidate for 
re-election or not. We have just passed through 



NATIOXAL EJ r OLUTION 95 

such a "third' year" of agitation ' for selecting the 
Presidential standard bearers. The political news 
of the day was absorbed by this battle ; it occupied 
the newspapers, magazines and public speakers for 
almost a year. All party effort was directed towards 
that one object. It dominated Congress to the ex- 
clusion of necessary legislation. 

It is inevitable that all this should have its reflex in 
the business activities of the people, producing a simi- 
lar condition of expectancy and doubt, of uncertainty' 
about fiscal policy, pending laws and affairs in gen- 
eral. It affects enterprise, reduces investments and 
improvements, curtails production and employment ; 
so that the year of a Presidential election is proverb- 
ially a bad year in business. The general feeling is, 
in consequence, that if these results are inseparable 
from this event, it would be bad enough to have them 
recur every six or seven years only instead of every 
four years. 

It is very probable that no such unsettling in- 
fluences would attend a change of administration if 
we elected our President by vote of the Congress as- 
sembled in joint-conclave, as is done in France ; but 
that plan would involve far-reaching changes in other 
directions that are not desirable. Above all it would 
alter that pervading and truly popular representative 
character of the Presidency as now existent, which is 
such a salutary feature of Our Republic. 

From the preceding arguments it should be evident 
that the whole principle of re-eligibility at the end of 
a four-year term must be condemned for the demor- 
alization it exerts upon the hold-over administration. 
If the term of office were longer, this effect would 



96 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

not be lessened much ; it would only recur less fre- 
quently. And, since the four years of office are plainly 
not sufficient for an administration to assert and prove 
itself, the conclusion has taken firm root that the term 
of the Presidency should be lengthened, and re-eligi- 
bility in direct succession discontinued altogether. 
This change would, naturally, affect all appointive 
offices in the gift of the President, so that the entire 
administration would gain in stability and authority. 

As to the length of the term, all periods from four to 
ten years have been advocated, many men of informa- 
tion and experience favoring seven years, the same as 
in France. The Author believes, however, that a 
term of even years has the great advantage of falling 
into line with the Congressional changes, which run 
in two-year intervals, and that concurrent changes in 
administration are, on general principles, preferable 
to separated ones, not to mention the disturbing effect 
of the extra and separate Presidential elections which 
would be necessitated, from time to time, by a term of 
uneven years. 

We have, therefore, the choice of a six, eight or 
ten year term, the last being the longest so far pro- 
posed. The writer strongly favors the six-year term. 
He believes that, with non-eligibility in direct suc- 
cession, it will furnish a term, practically, three years 
longer than the present four-year term with, re-eligi- 
bility disturbing the last year. Six unbroken years 
of concentrated effort of a President and his party 
make a respectable stretch of time in which some- 
thing solid and permanent can be accomplished, a 
definite policy carried to fruition. The bane of divided 
responsibility for measures carried over from one ad- 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 97 

ministration to another would be largely eliminated. 
It would give a President and all his Department of- 
ficials ample time to thoroughly master the "details 
of the public service and gain the experience neces- 
sary to inaugurate desirable improvements. A Presi- 
dent could vacate his office after a six-year term with- 
out feeling that he and his supporting? party had 
lacked the time and opportunity to show their per- 
sonal mettle and the merits of their political prin- 
ciples. 

The ten-year term has but few advocates, and li 
open to the objection, which in a less degree apph.es 
to the eight-year term, thct its duration is dangerously 
long, in case of great public dissatisfaction^ with an 
administration on account of its acts, or in case of h 
distinct change of feeling on some important public 
questions. In such a situation the remedy of change 
by a new election, which is the only one available, 
is too far removed, in length of time, to allow the 
popular .will to express itself with the desirable 
promptness. 

Such a state of dissatisfaction could, certainly, find 
expression in the two-year intervals in the House >>f 
Representatives and, in a more limited way, in the 
Senate also. It could in this way obtain Congressional 
expression, even to the point of creating a minority 
of the administration-party and a majority of the op- 
position ; but, beyond blocking or harassing legisla- 
tion, it could not compel the voluntary retirement of 
the administration. The differences of opinion here 
considered are, of course, not such as would be mat- 
ters subject to the impeachment powers of Congress. 

This contingency of a possible serious difference of 



98 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

opinion between the majority of the People and an 
Administration reveals a point in which our govern- 
ment is not nearly so sensitive a barometer of public 
opinion as that of England; for, in that country, where 
there is no fixed term of office of either the Ministry 
or the House of Commons, a decided change of public 
opinion expressed in Parliament through the by-elec- 
tions quickly leads to new elections and, generally, a 
change of Party-government, in harmony with the 
feeling in the country. 

The six-year-term is considerably less open to the 
above objection of reduced control of the government 
by the People ; and, being the nearest desirable period 
to the four-year term, is also the one to secure popular 
approval more readily from all those who are now op- 
posed to any change whatever, and who will have to 
be won over to the new idea by persuasion. 



What the private position of a retired President 
should be, and also the question of a pension, have 
been argued in a previous chapter. That an ex-Presi- 
dent should be re-eligible at any other time not in 
direct succession of himself is quite a matter-of- 
course. 

In regard to the age-qualification for the Presi- 
dency, now fixed by the Constitution at 35 years the 
Author has already expressed the opinion that age- 
<qualiricati6n in general for all our higher officials, 
should be raised. The reasons for this can be easily 
inferred from this and preceding articles. For the 
Presidency of the United States a man is required 
of suet ! mature judgment in general affairs, extensive 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 99 

political experience, and practical acquaintance with 
the characteristics and needs of all parts of the coun- 
try, that the age of 35 years is not sufficient to furnish 
this extensive equipment. In these active times of 
ours, with all their manifold demands and offerings, 
a man of 35 is considered to be still a young man, i. e. 
one not having" reached the full height of powers and 
experience. The writer believes that an age-standard 
of 45 years for the President would not be too high 
a mark to set for this most exacting one of all the 
executive positions in the world. 



II.— THE UNITED STATES SENATOR AND 
CONGRESSMAN. 

GOVERNORS AND OTHER STATE OFFICERS. 
—THE TERMS OF OFFICE.— AGE-QUAL- 
IFICATION .—RE-ELIGIBILITY AND 
MANNER OF ELECTION. 

The U. S. Senatorship is one of the most important 
and influential positions in the Republic. The Senate 
is the Legislative body which, from its constitution and 
manner of election, is justly assumed to contain the 
conservative wisdom of the Nation ; prudence, expe- 
rience, caution and great sense of responsibility are 
expected from it. The Senate is not to reflect too 
prominently the changing sentiments of the people ; 
that quality, which is also desirable in a "Government 
by the People," is reserved more particularly for the 
House of Representatives and the Presidency. Thus, 
the two bodies of Congress balance and complement 



100 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

each other in the political character assigned to each 
by the Constitution, and also in the division of their 
legislative duties. This general complexion and rela- 
tionship is brought about by the plan of their election. 
The U. S. Congressman or, more correctly, Represen- 
tative, is elected directly by the popular vote of each 
State for the short term of two years, and of a number 
in definite proportion to the voting population of a 
State. The basis is such that even a young State ob- 
tains a fair absolute numerical representation in the 
House. The U. S. Senate, on the other hand, is fixed 
by the Constitution to an equal representation of two 
members from each state, whether large or small ; and 
the Senators are chosen by the Legislature of each 
State, instead of by the People, and for a term of six 
years, in relays of two-yearly renewals of one-third of 
the total number of Senators. 

This entire legislative plan of the Constitution was 
a subject of acute contention at the time of its framing, 
due to the strong feeling for State Independence and 
for "equality" of representation of each State in the 
Federal Government. Guided by history and their own 
experience as a self-governing people, the aim was to 
frame a National Legislature that should as much as 
possible check itself, be its own regulating pendulum. 
Nearly all representative Assemblies, ancient and mod- 
ern, show the feature of two Bodies of different char- 
acter, one as the direct choice and expression of the 
People, elected for short terms so as the readier to rep- 
resent changes of public opinion, and drawn generally 
from the younger political men of the country; the 
other representing the People indirectly, and appointed 
either by a higher elective officer, a President or Gov- 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 101 

ernor, or chosen by the secondary assembly that is 
itself elected, as above described. 

In this way the second body becomes the choice of 
agents of matufer judgment and experience, who would 
naturally tend to the selection of men of some years, 
settled chara-cter and opinions, to secure reliability and 
public confidence. These considerations, logically, 
carry with them a longer term of service than that in 
the "popular body," to establish a fairly continuous 
operation of these benefits 

Such ideas and measures are directly founded in the 
every-day experience of men with each other; in the 
knowledge of their own weaknesses, passions, vanities 
and of the necessity of erecting safe-guards and checks 
against their own failings: much like the evolution of 
the general ethical code of human intercourse from the 
lessons of life. That there is wisdom in this process, 
if there is any anywhere at all, cannot be gainsaid. It 
combines enthusiasm, flexibility and direct popular in- 
spiration with caution, permanence and tried judgment. 
The plan of the U. S. Congress embodied these general 
lines, and combined therewith the great principle of 
equal representation for all States in the Senate, 
making them like a family of sisters in which all are 
entitled to equal recognition and interest in the com- 
mon estate, honor and prestige of their House, no mat- 
ter how much they might vary in age. abilities or 
physical characteristics. 

The preceding ideas appear to the Author to estab- 
lish the correct relationship between the two divisions 
of the U. S. Congress ; they express and emphasize 
the very essence of the Federal Union. In the poli- 
cies affecting all the people, be they domestic or for- 



102 XATIONAL EVOLUTION 

eign, all the States should, undoubtedly, have an equal 
voice, irrespective of size, population or other condi- 
tions. The principle of equal "sovereignty" inherent 
in each State compels this view absolutely. The State 
of Oklahoma should have as much right and power as 
Pennsylvania to assert its sentiment on those import- 
ant questions of internal and foreign relations which 
are more particularly the province of the Senate. In 
the House of Representatives the inferior numerical 
representation of a small State is justified by the 
smaller local population and the more limited interests 
thereof; it is, moreover, equitable, being in the same 
proportion, in all the States, to the total number of 
their voters. 

The above considerations should not only dispose 
of all ideas of "proportionate" and, therefore, unequal 
representation in the Senate, but also of the proposal 
of their direct election by the People, which has of late 
been agitated anew and now made a Plank in the 
Democratic Platform of the coming Presidential cam- 
paign. To make the number of Senators from each 
State dependent, in some definite proportion, on the 
number of voters, and to have them elected by popular 
vote, would simply be an extension of the House of 
Representatives in a slightly modified form as to age 
limit and length of term ; all the other valuable and 
necessary characteristics of the Senate would be de- 
stroyed by this process. Or, to have half the plan of 
one idea and half of the other, i. e., an equal number 
elected by the People, or a proportionate number 
chosen by the Legislatures, would in either case de- 
stroy at least one of the cardinal attributes of the Sen- 
ate as now constituted. One or the other or both of 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 103 

the excellent and tried features of the present system 
would be forfeited by departure from it. 

What are the advantages claimed for any of these 
propositions? It is urged against the election of Sena- 
tors by the State Legislatures that they are in that 
way more liable to be the candidates and representa- 
tives of powerful private interests, as opposed, to the 
interests of the People. It is claimed that these inter- 
ests can, by purchase, make their influence felt among 
the members of a Legislature, but not among the gen- 
eral body of voters. It is, further, asserted that these 
interests have such great advantages at stake in se- 
curing "pledged" influence in the Senate, that, no con- 
siderations of patriotism or public rights and welfare 
would restrain them from plotting such nefarious 
manipulations. 

There is undeniable truth in this argument, as at- 
tested by ample public facts. But the writer believes 
that "corrupt influences" like the above will always find 
a way to secure their pitiable tools in Senate and 
House, no matter what the system of election that 
might be devised. For such evils of representative 
government, resting on popular favor, there. is only one 
cure, or restriction to the humanly possible minimum, 
i. e., the raising of the intelligence and sense of respon- 
sibility of the Electorate, and the resultant raising .of 
the standard of all elective officials who, in turn, have 
the selection of others delegated to them, i. e., The 
Congress, President, Governors, Legislatures. 

To attempt reform in this and all similar questions 
in any other more direct and arbitrary manner would 
in most cases invite loss and failure in other directions, 
far greater than the gain would be. even if the theory 



104 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

would prove itself in practice. It does not seem reas- 
onable to destroy what is good in principle and, in the 
main, supported by actual experience, merely because 
of unavoidable human frailties which bring- abuses and 
prevent a full realization of a beneficent plan. The bet- 
ter way would seem to be to leave the good principles 
untouched and, rather, to improve the human factor in 
its application. We should not throw away a valuable 
tool simply because we have not yet acquired sufficient 
control over its possibilities for doing good work. 

The other, incident, advantage of a popular vote for 
U. S. Senators, that of securing thereby direct expres- 
sion of public opinion, has already been considered and 
rejected as being unnecessary since The House of Rep- 
•esentatives now fulfills that function in ample numbers 
from each State. In spite of these considerations, the 
clamor for "popular" influence in the choice of U. S. 
Senators has grown to such an extent, in a number of 
the Western States, that indirect means have been de- 
vised to secure this expression of the popular wish, in 
distinct violation of the intent of the Constitution as 
to the relative character of the Senator and the Rep- 
resentative in our plan of government. The process 
adopted is to pass a State law for "direct nomination" 
of U. S. Senators, and to vote thereon at the State elec- 
tions, thus expressing the majority choice of the peo- 
ple. The State Legislature still exercises the function 
of electing the U. S. Senators, but the popular wish as 
expressed at the polls dictates their choice almost cate- 
gorically. The result is objectionable, as pointed out 
above, and the method is a clandestine circumvention 
of the Supreme Law of the land. Nothing need be 
added in condemnation of this scheme. 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 105 

The argument advanced against equal representa- 
tion in the Senate from each State is based on the con- 
tention of the more developed States that their greater 
numbers, wealth and Federal taxation-tribute should 
entitle them to a larger voice in the Senate than that of 
the States inferior to them in these respects. The ar- 
gument is as old as the Republic. It was successfully 
combatted in the Constitutional Congress ; it lacks 
breadth of Statesmanship and perception of the true 
idea of Federal union. The author believes it has been 
amply answered, in its most essential points, in the 
course of this article, and that a more detailed dissec- 
tion of the question is unnecessary. 

As to the re-eligibility, in direct succession, of U. S. 
Senators and Representatives there can be no valid ob- 
jection to it. The arguments made against this prac- 
tice in the case of the Presidency and Governors of 
States apply only in a very attenuated degree to these 
positions. Also, such a rule would send many a valu- 
able man permanently back to private life and discour- 
age the ambition for a political career. This would 
tend to rob the United States of the creation of a 
trained body of Public men, which could not be other 
than a detriment to the interests of the country. In 
political life, as in other lines, practical experience is a 
valuable partner with ability, honesty and devotion in 
producing the best equipment and services. 



The Constitutions of State governments, as to terms 
of office and manner of election of the principle officers, 
vary so greatly that it is not practical to make a 



106 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

detailed argument to cover all cases. The writer will 
confine himself to the re-iteration of the general opin- 
ions previously expressed on these matters. Concern- 
ing the Governorship the same arguments apply as 
those made in the case of the Presidency. The term of 
all Governors should not be less than six years, and 
re-eligibility in direct succession made impossible. It 
is also very desirabe to establish uniformity in this 
term in the different States. In the case of these offi- 
cials of two and three and four-year terms of office 
there is special reason for lengthening the present pe- 
riod in the fact that the State, in itself and in its rela- 
tion to the large cities, is either the direct party in 
interest or the sponsor and trustee of large public un- 
dertakings, such as canals, roads, bridges, railroads, 
trolley-lines, buildings, water-supply and sewerage sys- 
tems, etc. The beginning and completion of such 
works is now distributed over too many separate, short 
terms of office, making it impossible to place either 
credit for success or blame for failure where they justly 
belong. 

In the present term of Governor Charles E. Hughes 
of New York we have an eloquent illustration of the 
pernicious results of the short-term system, and also 
of direct re-eligibility. For, scarcely had this excel- 
lent man become well settled down to the difficult du- 
ties of his office, than a Presidential agitation was 
started in his favor which, no matter how well war- 
ranted it may have been from other points of view, was 
bound to tax his time and attention severely and to 
distract his mind from the daily work of Governor of 
the State of New York. This Presidential boom went 
the way of others, only to be followed by the present 



NAT10XAL EVOLUTION 107 

agitation for his re-election as Governor, with like per- 
nicious effects. 

The flippant and superficial spirit of our office-hold- 
ing system is well illustrated by this case. It would 
probably be going beyond the reasonabe to say that a 
successful Governor of a State should be precluded be- 
coming a Presidential candidate while still in office. 
But this privilege should most positively be restricted 
to the last year of the term ; and, if it then presented 
itself towards the end of a six-year service, the condi- 
tions would be so entirely different and less harmful as- 
to make the proposition unobjectionable. 

The terms of State Senators and Representatives, 
called Assemblymen in some States, might with ad- 
vantage be made the same as those of the National 
Congress, respectively six years and two years, in sin- 
gle terms with direct re-eligibility. For these offices, 
also, uniformity in the several States is very desirable 
and worth striving for while a general change is being 
made. All the remarks made in relation to the direct 
re-eligibility of U. S. Senators, and Representatives, 
apply with equal reason to these corresponding State 
officers. 



For all these high Federal and State officials an ad- 
vance in the age-qualification is as necessary as for the 
Presidential office, and for the identical reasons. These 
need not be repeated at length. Suffice it to say that 
the vastly increased amount of work required from the 
public man of the day, the extensive preparation nec- 
essary for the career, the strenuous character of the life 
with its exacting calls upon the mental and physical 



103 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

energies all make this change a necessity in the inter- 
est of every one concerned. The age-qualification 
which was satisfactory in other times is proving inade- 
quate to-day. 

The Author, therefore, advocates that the age of qual- 
ifications for U. S. Senator, now placed at 30 years 
shall be raised to 35 years ; that of Representatives in 
Congress, now placed at 25 years to 30 years ; and that 
the age-qualification of State Governors, Senators and 
Assemblymen, which all vary to some extent in the 
■different States, shall severally be raised at least five 
years above the present rule. It is very desirable in 
making this change to strive for uniformity of require- 
ment throughout the Union. As a suggestion the age 
for Governors might very well be set at 40 years, that 
of State Senators at 35 years, and that of Assemblyman 
at 30 years, making the latter offices identical with the 
corresponding Federal ones. The beneficial effect of 
these changes, in connection with the reform of the 
Franchise, would be incalculable for the future of the 
country. 



As to the State Judiciary the Author firmly believes 
it would gain in respect, influence and usefulness if the 
Judges of the Supreme Courts and Appellate Courts 
were made appointive for life, on the same grounds and 
plan as those of the U. S. Supreme Courts and Circuit 
Courts. The Judges of the lower State Courts might 
with propriety be appointive for periods of two Gover- 
nor's terms, i. e., twelve years, with right to re-appoint- 
ment in direct succession. The change in this respect, 
in some of the older states, from appointive to elective 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 100> 

positions has not been a public benefit from any point 
of view ; it has been a purely political maneuvre, en- 
grafted upon that part of the public service that should 
be the least political and the most independent, secure 
and non-partisan. The Bench can only lose in being 
dragged into the net-work of party-politics, passions 
and strife ; it can only gain in authority and dignity 
by being as far as possible removed from their in- 
fluence. 

In conclusion the reader is referred back to all that 
has been said in the chapter on "Authority and Dignity 
in Government," and to any other parts of the book 
bearing on the principle of respect for the Law and 
dignity for its Judges ; likewise to these top'ics in ref- 
erence to other public officials. He is also referred to 
previous remarks made on the short-term system ; the 
resigning of high positions to return to the ranks of 
the Law or Business ; the spectacle of Judges of the 
Bench entering the political arena in a struggle for of- 
fice. All these glaring political improprieties we must 
expunge without mercy, as being exhibitions of imma- 
ture civic and social conditions. Our aim must be to 
reach more settled and conservative practices ; to in- 
fuse a deeper sense of importance and responsibility 
into every act and phase connected with the adminis- 
tration of government. 



110 XATIONAL EVOLUTION 

III.— THE CORELATION OF THE THREE 
BRANCHES OF THE GOVERNMENT 

PRESIDENTIAL POWERS AND INITIATIVE.— 
THE U. S. SUPREME COURT.— FEDERAL 
AND STATE JUDICIAL POWERS.— THE 
CIVIL SERVICE.— STATE RIGHTS VS. 
CENTRALIZATION. 

The same sagacity which so successfully designed 
the Legislative Branch of the Government, and which 
created the unique system of executive power, added 
thereto the Judicial Branch to complete a trio of inde- 
pendent, yet closely related departments which is fa- 
mous in the history of written Constitutions. While 
the general idea of this plan was not strictly new, and 
liad, in an elementary form, existed in the Colonial 
Governments, it had never before been worked out to 
the precise, complete and peculiar plan in which it is 
incorporated in our Constitution. In many ways the 
Judicial Branch, i. e., The United States Supreme Court 
system, is the most original feature of this original 
•combination ; it has no exact prototype or parallel in 
any of the republican Constitutions which had pre- 
ceded our own. 

The U. S. Supreme Court was not to be the founda- 
tion or chief exponent of the Common Law, Civil or 
Criminal, for, that existed in the Codes and Courts 
of the Federal States. It was to be, in particular, 
the ''High Court of the Federal Union" in all cases 
arising out of that Union and concerning the country 
as a whole, all as defined in detail in the Constitution. 
But, most important of all, this Court was to interpret 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 111 

the meaning" and determine the application of the Con- 
stitution itself, in the words of that instrument : "The 
Judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and 
equity arising under this Constitution." 

This meant that the Supreme Court was to define 
in detail the relative functions and powers of the legis- 
lative and executive branches of the Government ; of 
the States and the Federal Union in relation to each 
other ; to decide the constitutionality of all subsequent 
amendments and laws enacted by the Congress or the 
State Legislatures, the rights of citizens, and all other 
matters that are included within its written and its 
implied scope. These powers were absolutely required 
to enable the country to be governed, and they had to 
be placed somewhere, but it was equally necessary to 
place them independently of the Legislative and Ex- 
ecutive departments ; it would have been illogical and 
dangerous to attach them to either of these branches. 
That course would have inevitably tended to pro- 
duce interested interpretation, conflict, usurpation and 
destruction of the entire Dlan of Government. 

The above powers were absolutely required because, 
from the nature of the case and the general situation 
at the time of its framing, the Constitution could only 
be one of leading principles and main features, not of 
details. To determine correctly the great principles 
on which the new Union was to be founded, was its 
difficult and main task, and also its shining success. 
To attempt to define its application to every case and 
contingency of politics and administration would not 
alone have made the instrument too definite, robbing 
it of its elasticity, but was also impractical from other 
reasons. 



112 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

The whole plan had to be general and in a measure 
tentative, like the new Union was tentative and its 
future undetermined. None could tell what Constitu- 
tional questions of detail would arise, what unforeseen 
problems present themselves. Also, the contest over 
the main plan of the Constitution had been so severe, 
bordering at times closely upon entire failure of agree- 
ment, that any attempt to load it down with embar- 
rassing details would have jeopardized its acceptance. 
The aim of the Federalist guiding spirits was to get 
it right in all its fundamental principles, and have it 
passed and accepted by the country. 

In this aim they left a wide scope to the Legislative 
and Executive branches to fill out its framework, by 
their own authority, with all necessary details, and to 
enlarge its field by amendments and additions, as ne- 
cessity would dictate. To the Supreme Court they 
assigned the function of defining its meaning in de- 
tail, and determine its application "in law and equity" 
to all specific questions that might arise ; to pass on 
the constitutionality of the Amendments and all laws 
of a Federal bearing ; particularly to establish clearly 
the relationship, powers and duties of all departments 
of the government. From this indeterminate latitude 
arose, right from the very beginning of its enactment, 
the two views of "wide" construction with "implied" 
meaning, and "close" construction with "literal" mean- 
ing, represented, respectively, by Hamilton and Jef- 
ferson. These opposing views became, largely, the 
foundation doctrines of the National parties, of the ad- 
herents of "centralization" vs. "State rights" policies, 
down to our own day. 

In the prosecution of this plan of work a great num- 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 113 

ber of "rulings" have been made by this Court which 
have illuminated every paragraph and aspect of the 
Constitution, as they were called in operation or drawn 
into doubt in the course of the political development 
of the country. The result has been a gradual, cau- 
tious and thoroughly practical amplification of the 
original Constitution, because accomplished in the solv- 
ing of actual problems of politics, law and administra- 
tion. This process has proven its intrinsic wisdom, 
constructive and conservative force. 

This successful corelation of the three branches of 
our government must be maintained in strict integrity, 
in the future as in the past ; it is the anchor to which 
the "Ship of State" is moored. While the- Court thus 
reviews the enactments of the Congress and the Leg- 
islatures in the course of test suits that may be brought, 
there is for its own judgments no further tribunal of 
appeal or revision than the Court itself ; beyond that its 
judgments are final and binding. The Supreme Court 
is, therefore, the ultimate and highest authority" in the 
country. There must necessarily, in all governments, 
be an end to the "ladder of power" beyond which there 
is no relief, at which there must be absolute acquies- 
cence and submission, otherwise there could be neither 
authority nor peace in the land. 

The greatest danger to the disturbance of the suc- 
cessful co-relation of the powers can arise from an 
over-bearing Presidency, because of the liberal inter- 
pretation which can be given to its Initiative and Ex- 
ecutive powers, and because they are exercised by a 
single individual. While the general scope of these 
powers is well circumscribed, the degree of activity 
with which they can be exercised, while technically re^ 



114 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

maining within the law, is somewhat undefined and 
allows of much latitude. In the matter of giving to 
Congress "from time to time information of the state 
of" the Union," and recommending to their considera- 
tion "such measures as he shall judge necessary and 
expedient" the whole gamut of action, from a mere 
suggestive submitting of ideas about legislation to a 
categorical and aggressive personal demand can be run, 
with wide differences in the accompanying political 
effect. 

The relation, therefore, which may exist between the 
Executive and the Congress is largely one of personal 
characteristics of the encumbent President. A mind 
of a judicial cast, not dominant in temperament, and 
disposed to a literal construction of the word "recom- 
mend" may become negative as an initiator of legisla- 
tion, may even become a willing tool in the hands 
of a determined Congress, while one of the opposite 
disposition, keen, ambitious, resolute and a skilled poli- 
tician can as easily become its dictator in these matters. 
Such a President would receive powerful aid in his 
course from the long line of public offices in his gift, 
many Of which are independent of the concurrence of 
the Senate and could be used as a lever in support 
of his influence. 

Undoubtedly, the correct line of tactful, yet properly 
assertive attitude of the Executive towards the Con- 
gress is difficult to draw, not easy to find. It is, and will 
remain, a matter of abilities, disposition and constitu- 
tional view-point. We have reason, however, to trust 
that no very serious embarrassments will ever result 
to the country from Presidential usurpation of influ- 
ence over Congress, from the fact that f he bringing 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION . 115 

of undue pressure upon that body, systematically and 
continuously, is an undertaking with which only a Her- 
cules in body and mind can grapple, and even such a 
a one cannot prosecute long. The Congress has be- 
come too numerous a body and of a too heterogeneous 
composition to be thus influenced overwhelmingly in 
both Houses and for any length of time. This possible 
evil, therefore, carries the remedy well within itself. 
Good judgment, patriotism and a genuine desire to 
accomplish the work for which they are called will, 
in most cases, dictate the rinding of a common ground 
between the two contestants. 

In regard to the great extent of the Presidential and 
Senatorial appointive power, some dissatisfaction mani- 
fests itself from time to time. It is held to be unwise 
in principle, especially in a republic, to place so much 
power in a single official absolutely, and in him and 
a favored part of the Congress conjointly. Experi- 
ence, however, seems to have demonstrated that in the 
general administrative service, election of officials, 
either by the Congress, or by popular vote, would be 
impractical from the great number of these positions, 
and undesirable from the fact that it would separate 
authority and responsibility in respect of the official, 
to the detriment of the service. Since appointment is 
the better way. in theory and practice, the present sys- 
tem is the best that can be devised ; and we must look 
to the extension and constant improvement of the Civil 
Service plan to cure or minimize the defects that are 
now associated with it. 

A more serious fault is presented by the possible 
abuse of the appointive power by President and Sen- 
ate in the interest of party-policy. There is no ques- 



116 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

tion that "party-government" is the only practical way 
for representative institutions. The control of the 
party in power by a watchful, ambitious opposition is 
the best guaranty for avoiding extreme and unwise 
actions. And it is natural, even desirable, that the 
Party in Power shall strengthen itself by all legitimate 
means. But the ruthless removal of tried and capable 
officials, merely to give place to possibly inferior ad- 
herents of the Party in Power, is a bad practice. This 
question will be treated in detail further on. In re- 
gard to the Supreme Court political circumstances may 
arise under which it would be desirable, and also popu- 
lar, to influence its judgments by filling vacancies with 
Judges favorable to a desired policy. Such action has 
been had in a limited way, and may be had again; but 
it can safely be said it will never become a practice to 
any apprehensive extent. A President and Senate 
would think more than twice before incurring the 
odium of a systematic policy of "packing" this Court. 
Also, the life-tenure of office makes it quite unlikely 
that a sufficient number of vacancies will occur just at 
the opportune moment for such a maneuvre, or that 
such an unfortunate conjunction is liable to occur often. 
We see that, happily for the Republic, this Court is 
protected by ample safeguards to insure its independ- 
ence and purity. Its rulings may, at times, have been 
in error — the Court is but human. At other times its 
wise and just decisions have been attacked by ag- 
grieved sections of the people, even to the demand for 
its abolishment. Its appointive character and life-ten- 
ure have been assailed as being antagonistic to a quick 
responsiveness to popular sentiment. But how can that 
which is designed to be the secure haven of calm and 



RATIONAL EVOLUTION 117 

judicial deliberation, in midst of the turbulence of po- 
litical passion and trancient public emotions, be at the 
same time made their ready servant and exponent? 
The proposition is a paradox, and must be emphat- 
ically rejected. This question will be treated in detail 
further on. 

Short of revolution there must be one unimpeachable 
expressed authority in every government, the pinnacle 
of its structure, to which all must bow from a spirit 
of pure loyalty and political self-preservation. That 
rock of strength in our republic is the United States 
Supreme Court. 



In the political opportunities connected with the 
extensive office-patronage in the gift of the President 
and Senate, we arrive at a genuine and deep-seated 
evil which calls for reform. This system of patronage 
in connection with party-rule, the "spoils system" of 
office-holding for political reward, was never intended 
by the Constitution. It grew up, in the course of time, 
as the "prize" of politics, making thereof, with too 
many, a selfish and demoralizing trade. So great were 
the abuses, scandals and corruption which developed 
under this scheme of party-patronage that public 
decency finally demanded the establishment of the 
Civil Service Rules of appointment. Reference has 
been made to this subject in a previous chapter. Much 
improvement has come with this reform, but its appli- 
cation is still too limited. It should be extended to all 
higher positions in the direct gift of the President, now 
outside its pale, and also include most of those offices 
now dependent on confirmation by the Senate. 



118 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

Excepting Cabinet Ministers, Ambassadors, Special 
Commissioners and similar purely political offices that 
are a part of an administration's general policy, and 
excepting Judges (whose competence in the Civil 
Service sense cannot be questioned), all other ex- 
clusively administrative offices, should be made ap- 
pointive under Civil Service rules of qualification and 
guaranties. Party influence and dependence should be 
entirely eliminated from the permanent staff of the 
public service. Exception, in regard to the length of 
term, may with benefit be made in the case of the 
higher officials mentioned above, now appointed by the 
President and Senate and not under Civil Service 
Rules. Their terms should be made definite and, to 
avoid the political factor as much as possible, to extend 
over a period of two administrations, as herein pro- 
posed, i. e., for twelve years, with right of direct 
succession, if re-appointed. 

But in all these cases Civil Service qualifications, as 
to ability, age and fitness, must be made a condition 
of appointment. The reason. for the proposed excep- 
tion is that these higher offices carry with them a fair 
salary out of which a competence may be saved by the 
incumbent during such a period of years. This system 
would have the advantage of introducing a certain 
desirable mobility into this section of the government 
service, but dissociated from injustice, and fairly free 
from political machinations. 

Such a complete extension of the Civil Service sys- 
tem is becoming an absolute necessity when we con- 
template the rapid growth of the country, the multitude 
of employees concerned, the ever-widening sphere of 
duties of the administration. The benefits that will 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 119 

flow from its establishment, joined to the other xeSorms 
outlined in this book, would be so far-reaching as to 
discountenance the doubters of the republic and the 
socially discontented. These in the absence of any 
sign of comprehensive plans for change of that, which 
is defective and for amelioration of that. which is op- 
pressive, are fast drifting towards ideas of much more 
radical import. The degree to which the evils of ad- 
minsitration in Federal. State and City affairs are 
responsible for this trend is generally underestimated 
by our public men. 



Reference has been made in preceeding articles, to 
the subject of present centralization tendencies .and to 
questions of Judicial practice, resulting from the pur- 
pose of the present administration to punish offenders 
and restore honesty of business methods. The topic 
of "State Rights" is also, prominently before the public 
in connection with the recent legislation on railroads 
and "Trusts"; and. in consequence, clashes of f judicial 
authority have occured in several States, , This, whole 
question being one of very deep concern it will be well 
to go back to first principles in its consideration. It 
has its origin in the construction to be given by the 
Supreme Court to the clause of the Constitution which 
assigns to the Federal Congress the right and duty to 
regulate commerce "among the several States." It is an 
exceedingly indefinite clause in its original form, and 
was for many years inoperative for lack of Congress 
passing any specific laws to make it effective. The 
States, meantime, made such interstate regulations as 
were required on their own authority. 



120 NATIONAL FJ'OLUTION 

Subsequent Laws by Congress on the subject and 
their construction by the Supreme Court have now 
established clearly this clause to mean effective Federal 
regulation and control of commerce in its definite and 
indispensible means of being "carried on" be-tween or 
among the States, in other words of all common carriers, 
i. e., railroads, steamboat lines, canals, express com- 
panies, etc., operating over two or more States. This 
means, more definitely, the general supervision of 
these agents from the point of view of service, i. e., 
security, reliability, speed, convenience of transporta- 
tion, and responsibility for accident and loss. No 
other meaning could have been evolved by the reason- 
ing powers of man ; if the order of the Constitution 
did not mean that, there was nothing else left for it to 
mean. It could not have meant the price of goods, or 
the details of manufacture and sale ; for, these do not 
constitute the essential of Commerce. Commerce is 
exchange depending on shipment and transit of mer- 
chandise and people from point to point, and that 
means the agents which have been named in their inter- 
state functions. 

But, does the wording of the clause "to regulate" 
mean the making of rates for the carrying of passen- 
gers and freight? This is the "practical" aspect of the 
subject which causes so much contention at the 
present moment. The railroads themselves have largely 
brought about the series of Federal Court decisions 
which make up the law on the subject to-day, in their 
efforts to obtain protection and uniformity against the 
many contradictory State regulations which had been 
enacted in the absence of Federal rulings. 

The principle of National regulation of the means 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 121 

of interstate commerce has gradually become recog- 
nized as not only indisputable in its Constitutional 
foundation, but equitable and sound in common sense, 
in the peculiar political subdivision of our country, 
and as beneficial to the people and the carriers them- 
selves. The steady growth in the volume of business 
and the number and power of the carriers and. con- 
currently therewith, of a long list of abuses and high- 
handed practices, led to the establishment of the Inter- 
State Commerce Commission of 1887. as a regular 
department of the government to give complete effect 
to these conditions. 

The "burning questions" in connection with the 
matter are : To what extent have State Rights been 
invaded, or, to what extent must they be respected 
in the application of this policy? Does this policy 
involve a dangerous tendency towards National cen- 
tralization ; can the federal government regulate the 
cost of transportation, make rates, in view of the fact 
that the carriers are operated under, and derive alP 
their rights from. State Charters? The latter question 
is really the crux of the problem, and has led the 
President and other extreme regulators to the proposal 
of Federal incorporation. 

With this idea the whole subject obtains a new 
perspective; it brings the State Rights aspect to the 
front. For, the incorporating or chartering of a rail- 
road or similar transportation enterprise rests primarily 
upon territorial rights and authority, and these belong 
unquestionably and exclusively to the States within 
their own borders. The right of invasion or assump- 
tion of this territorial sovereignty by the Federal 
government does not now exist, except for its own 



122 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

needs and public purposes, and in respect of the 
National Domain. It can never be acquired or con- 
veyed to it in a larger sense, by any law or Con- 
stitutional amendment. National incorporation would, 
therefore, be an empty formality that could carry no 
substantial powers not now possessed by the Interstate 
Commerce Commission. 

In granting the empowering charters to Public 
Carriers the State also enacts all prescriptions for 
construction and administration that are required by 
the public interests and welfare. And, certainly only 
that authority, which can grant to these enterprises 
the essentials for their existence, can assume the right 
to determine and prescribe the cost or rates of the ser- 
vice to be rendered. The Author doubts, w r ith many 
others, whether it is legal, even for the State, to do 
this, unless it is distinctly so agreed in the original 
grant. 

This whole matter of railroad rates, administration, 
etc., is a business question and must be so treated. 
Unless a railroad is not only designed and organized, 
but administered, exploited and run by a State or the 
Nation for the benefit of the people, it is unquestion- 
ably a private business, but one which has certain 
public obligations in return for the privileges received. 

It is the violation of -these obligations that has set 
the public and the authorities against these properties. 
They have been guilty of gross abuses in their financial 
management, over-capitalization, fraudulent mergers, 
and traffic combinations in restraint of free competi- 
tion, of stock-gambling; of discrimination by rebates 
and other favors, indifference to just complaint of poor 
service, of high-handed practices, especially in the 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 12$ 

handling of freight, etc. All these milters could not 
fail to produce a spirit of enmity, a sentiment of dis- 
trust and injury on the part of the public towards the 
whole interest. 

But these charges do not lie against all the roads, 
nor do all of them apply against any single line; they 
have been "generalized" too much; and the innocent 
have been made to suffer odium with the guilty. But 
the claim that the railroads and all other common car- 
riers have a public and National character, are a neces- 
sity to the people and the country, and must be "run" 
with a due regard to this position, must be fully 
allowed. 

What, then, is reasonable regulation, and how is it 
to be divided between State and Nation? Its character 
and limitations have been previously indicated, and 
they are the same for State and Nation ; they comprise 
all proper public obligations and duties on the part of 
the carriers that are not in opposition to their private 
business rights, as owners of the properties. And, as 
to the relative position of State and Nation in the 
exercise of their control, the State must be supreme 
within its boundaries, supreme as to its own charter 
interests and State railroad regulations, the Nation in 
the interstate problems of the case, in mergers and 
traffic regulations between roads running through 
different States, in matters of safety-appliances and 
accidents and in the interstate reorganization of stock 
and bond issues, etc. Federal authority must find a 
way to work in harmony with State regulations, but 
may supplement these in all public matters in which 
they may be deficient. The details of this division of 
authoritv are by no means easv of solution in a busi- 



1-24 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

ness so full of detail ; still less are they insurmountable, 
once the right principle of action has been found. 

If, on the other hand, wc are prepared to maintain 
that railroads are entirely a public business, State or 
National or both, and to assume their direction and 
control in all but the practical work thereof, taking 
away from their real owners all actual power, incen- 
tive and business interest, we shall speedily be com- 
pelled to make them a public business in fact, by mak- 
ing them "public property," which can mean nothing 
else but Government ownership. This is the rock 
ahead of which we must aim to steer clear by wise 
and conservative action at this time. While firmly 
striving for all needed correction and improvements, 
we must resolutely avoid every dangerous paternal 
and state-social scheme of public administration. We 
are not ready for these ; and in the great extent and 
the peculiar political character of our country there 
is special ground against them at all times. The mind 
is fairly staggered at the thought of Government 
ownership and management of railroads in this im- 
mense territory, and at the political aspect of such a 
step. The undertaking would prove a physical im- 
possibility, would most likely bankrupt the Nation, 
and involve us in commercial and general disaster. 



The extensive and difficult work devolving upon the 
Interstate Commerce Commission and the Railroad 
and Public Service Commissions of the States, in the 
solution of the problems arising out of this vast sub- 
ject, and. also, of" the Bureau of Corporations of the 
Federal Department of Commerce, charged with the 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 125 

application of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, makes it 
an obligation of the highest order that the men 
selected for these positions be of superior qualifica- 
tions and personal character. It is a work of years; 
of accumulation and tabulation of facts and figures, of 
acquisition of practical insight into the details of rail- 
road and other corporation business, before the full 
influence for good of these bodies can be realized. 
Meantime much tentative and imperfect work will 
probably be done which accumulating experience will 
have to correct. The ultimate value of the work will 
proceed from its steady and faithful continuance, un- 
daunted by these temporary failures. 

The power vested in the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission is very great, and at present involves some 
danger from its being mostly "discretionary," as 
pointed out by President Woodrow Wilson, of Prince- 
ton University. This means that its enactments are 
fallible, uncertain, liable to bias, influence, change. 
They should as speedily as possible be converted into 
definite laws for administration by the Courts. 

Questions of States' Rights and relative authority of 
Federal and State Courts have also arisen, in connec- 
tion with "Trusts" and other large corporations com- 
ing under the application of the Sherman Anti-Trust 
Law. It is plain that the authority and dignity of the 
Courts positively demands that their relative jurisdic- 
tion in all these matters be promptly and definitely de- 
termined, in order to prevent, in the future, the 
unseemly "clashes" which have occurred. 

The subject of injunctions is, likewise, one of much 
contention at the present time in its application to 
Labor problems, so much so that the National Parties 



lfc$ NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

have been compelled to declare their position in refer- 
ence to it in their election platforms. The Law and 
practice thereon 'should be clear and indisputable. 
While the value of the right of Injunction is unques- 
tionable, and the practice of it must be maintained, 
some amendments increasing its equitable operation 
for both sides of a controversy seem to be required. 
The extreme demands of Labor on this matter are 
absolutely untenable. 

The general tendency towards increasing the Fed- 
eral power, Centralization, at the expense of State 
authority, on the plea of greater effectiveness and uni- 
formity of administration, should be emphatically 
combatted. The States' Rights issue is too fundament- 
ally important to the further healthful development of 
the Republic to be sacrificed to any other considera- 
tions whatever. A way of effectiveness and harmony, 
in combined State and Federal administration on the 
''strict" Constitutional plan, must be found to over- 
come minor difficulties, for the sake of that which is the 
most essential. The watch-word must forever be : A 
L^nion of sovereign and independent States! Truly, 
"In Union there 1 is Strength;" but to materialize that 
grand sentiment the Union must never become one of 
subjection to a too powerful Central Government that 
would in time reduce the States to mere "Administra- 
tive provinces" of a Republican, Empire. 

Apart from the principle involved, we must ever be 
conscious of the great increase in population to be 
expected, which may reach to one hundred and fifty 
millions of inhabitants by the middle of this century, 
Creating a situation which would greatly complicate 
the practical 1 difficulties and dangers of a centralized 



NATIOXAL El'OLUTION 127 

system of government. And glancing further into the 
future, the conception of the L'nited States, populated 
in like density as the European countries reaching an 
aggregate of 350 millions of inhabitants, and adminis- 
tered on a Centralized plan, is simply stupendous as a 
political thought ; one realizes instinctively its entire 
impracticability. The steps we take now, therefore, 
are not merely important for the present, but even 
more so for the future. Our safety lies in the strictest 
autonomy of State government compatible with that- 
reasonable degree of centralization which modern con- 
ditions have made unavoidable. 



IV.— UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE 

WHITE NATIVE AND ALIEN FRANCHISE.— 
COLORED RACES FRANCHISE, NATIVE 
AND ALIEN.— WOMAN SUFFRAGE, NA- 
TIVE AND ALIEN. WHITE AND COL- 
ORED.— IMMIGRATION.— MODERN TEN- 
DENCIES 

The views of the Author on suffrage in general, its 
present character and shortcomings and controlling 
importance as the source of all political power, have 
been expressed at several points. The Article on 
"Liberty, Equality, etc," covers the philosophical side 
of the question, while other chapters give practical 
illustrations of the defective working of the Franchise. 

As a general conclusion from what has preceded the 
fact is indisputable that there is a direct proportion 
between the quality of the electorate and that of 



128 ATIONAL EVOLUTION 

the government. The higher the intelligence and 
character of the voter, the higher the capacity and 
standing of the chosen officials, the higher the whole 
plane of public life. The proper qualifications of the 
voter must, therefore, be our chief inquiry and concern. 

In the chapters dealing with the early days of the 
Republic we called attention to the well-nigh perfect 
quality of the citizenship of those days. The prepara- 
tion had been ample, the conditions were comparatively 
simple. Men were "early called from school to rugged 
life," most of them as free sons of the soil, and became 
trained to independence of judgment and action, so 
that at the legal age of twenty-one they were men, and 
trustworthy of, the vote. 

These conditions gradually changed ; the introduc- 
tion of machinery developed the towns and cities and 
steadily brought about the modern industrial and 
social situation, with its great shops, factories and 
sales establishments, the confined and unsteady con- 
ditions of living, etc. These ways of work and exist- 
ence are physically and intellectually enslaving to men 
and women by long hours of unremitting application, 
narowing their views and interests, dwarfing their 
sympathies and lowering their horizon of life. To this 
came a great wave of immigration which affected the 
race development, influenced habits, ideas and politi- 
cal conceptions of the people. And since the Civil War 
the country's progress in all directions has been by 
leaps and bounds, accompanied by transformations in 
popular character, views and customs of life, political 
conceptions and practices that are simply astounding, 
and almost beyond the power of the mind to picture as 
an accomplished fact. 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 129 

We are in every way an entirely changed people. 
The work of the government in Nation, State and 
City, and the magnitude and intricacy of political ques- 
tions have now grown to such proportions that the 
subject is fast escaping the grasp and control of the 
ordinary man. In consequence a certain political in- 
difference, of helplessness, is settling upon the mass of 
the people, assisted by the feeling that our present poli- 
tical status is an accomplished fact that cannot be easily 
changed, and that the government will, in a manner, 
run by itself. We not only feel secure in our position 
of material and political success, but have entirely lost 
the conscious recollection and appreciation of what our 
Fathers fought for and achieved. 

The study and progress of the fine arts, literature, 
sciences, education, invention ; the great diversity of 
occupations ; the seductions of modern life and wealth 
to enjoyment, travel, ease and luxury of existence all 
tend to distract us and bring about a lessening of politi- 
cal interest. AVe are in the midst of a tremendous 
whirlpool of seething, foaming, rushing life which is 
producing a sum-total of material, work and interests 
that is threatening to engulf us ; it is rapidly outstrip- 
ping the capacity of the ordinary human mind for 
absorption. We can with difficulty scarcely survey, 
much less control this vast field of activities, and as a 
result w r e suffer, to-day, on the one hand from a pitiable 
superficiality, on the other from a one-sided specializa- 
tion of knowledge and pursuits. 

From these considerations it is plain that the position 
of the voter of to-day is one of far greater difficulties 
than formerly, his task of comprehension and responsi- 
bilities are immeasurably increased. Also, it has been 



130 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

observed that the young men and women of to-day re- 
main "boys and girls" much longer than formerly; 
they are at school to a much later age; they show a 
lack of seriousness of thought and of interest in mat- 
ters of import, in short, a tardiness of reaching intel- 
lectual and moral majority. This now lies several 
years beyond the long-established age of twenty-one 
years. Thus we have the incontrovertible fact of in- 
creased difficulties joined to decreased capacity; so 
that the conclusion is irresistible that we must advance 
the age of poliical maturity for men to at least twenty- 
four years, to secure the qualities necessary, as advo- 
cated by the writer in the article above referred to. 
The advancing of the age of citizenship would, of 
course, not permanently reduce the number of voters ; it 
would do so only for a "gap" of three years after its 
first inauguration. 

That the combined conditions enumerated demand 
of the voter not only a good standard of general educa- 
tion and moral character, but also a proper equipment 
of political information, no intelligent man would ques- 
tion. This complete politico-educational plan is de- 
scribed in detail in the article on Liberty, Equality, 
etc., to which the reader is referred, and which it would 
be well to read again at this juncture. These standards 
are a positive necessity; the correction of every abuse 
and defect which has been mentioned in the course of 
the book depends on them. Only in company with 
them can the reform of the terms of office, and all 
other measures advocated for bringing about honest 
and conscientious administration, become truly effec- 
tive. Parallel with the establishment of these uniform 
standards of citizenship the Author has recommended 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 131 

the abolishing of all other disabilities of race, color, 
property and sex, in the conviction that all such dis- 
tinctions are degrading to the principles of humanity 
and government which we profess. A few words of 
further elucidation are required on this extensive pro- 
position. 

Beginning with the problem of human races we can 
consider the relative position of the white or Caucasian 
race as not in dispute. The colored races of the 
Ethiopian, Mongolian and Malayan families are gener- 
ally considered inferior in intellectual and physical 
quaities to the Caucasian race; they occupy a lower 
scale of civilization and attainments. But a great spirit 
of progress has seized the principal peoples of these 
races, i. e., the Japanese and Chinese ; they are showing 
themselves possessed of awakening forces of advance 
that are preparing great results, as a whole, and have 
already produced individuals, in large numbers, equal 
to ourselves in intellectuality and resourcefulness, 
knowledge and skill in industries, ability in diplomacy 
and the art of modern war. 

As to the Negro of our own country, whom we can- 
not consider otherwise than an integral, albeit sorrow- 
ful part of our civilization, he has had the benefit of 
close association and political equality with his white 
brother since forty years, and has made remarkable 
intellectual progress as a class. In intelligence he is 
now quite on a level with the lower grades of the 
white race, while individual Negroes are, in large num- 
bers, on a par with the white man, highly educated 
and successfully engaged in all lines of business and 
professional pursuits. 

Taking up the Negro question in detail we touch a 



132 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

subject of disturbing past and present interest, inti- 
mately connected with our whole National history. 
The Negro has been with us a cause of dispute since 
the days of the Colonies. As the years rolled on, the 
progress of humanitarian enlightenment and the 
abuses growing out of his servitude as a slave, as per- 
sonal property, finally demanded his emancipation. 
This led to the great Civil War of 1861-5 in which the 
seceding slave-holding States of the South were de- 
feated, and the Negro made free. It was, however, as 
a side-issue, a political measure of the Republican 
party, now acknowledged to have been a mistake, if 
not a crime, that the Negro was not only freed, but 
also given the franchise, made politically an equal with 
the white man. 

Out of this unsound step, which was absolutely un- 
warranted in justice, logic or common sense, and was 
enacted in the flush of victory and sentimental exalta- 
tion, have flown all the troubles of the Negro, person- 
ally and as a class, and of the Southern States that are 
affected by what we know as the "Negro Question. " 
His political equality, ever an impossibility, has been 
not much more than a farce ; his social equality has 
not even been seriously attempted ; it is against human 
traits and inborn aversions which have been touched 
upon in previous articles, and which neither laws nor 
abstract convictions can compel or conquer. 

The North has always occupied a wholly theoretical 
and self-flattering sentimental position on this issue. 
It was very grand and humanitarian to insist on Negro 
suffrage and equality by those not injured or annoyed 
by their results, and to look coldly and contemptuously 
upon the struggle, in the Southern States, with the 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 133 

difficulties and impossibilities of the problem. Means 
have since been found in the South to minimize the 
Negro vote by property and educational tests. All 
these enactments, however, are in opposition to the 
plain intention of the XIV. and XV. Amendments of 
the Constitution ; they are, moreover, a discrimination 
aimed at a particular section of the people who have, 
by law, been declared to be free and equal citizens. 

Here we arrive at a strange conundrum. The law in 
question is a Federal law ; how is it its operation can 
be defeated? The answer is contained in what has 
been explained in a previous article: The States, in 
matters of the franchise, are supreme ; it emanates 
from them ; and this fundamental position is not upset 
by the Amendments quoted. This whole situation 
brings the law, by its non-observance, into contempt. 
While the unreasonableness and impractical character 
of these amendments have been thus demonstrated, 
their repeal is an impossibility, from the nature of the 
case. But while their repeal is impossible, their modi- 
fication and correction by a general law of higher 
electoral qualifications applicable equally to all, white 
or colored, native or alien, male or female, is not im- 
possible. 

This law would eliminate the chief difficulties of 
the Negro problem, incompetence on the one side and 
illegal discrimination on the other, with one stroke and ; 
forever. Truly, it would operate against the native 
negro proportionately more than against the white 
native, for a limited time at least, because of his greater 
illiteracy, but would not do so in comparison with most 
other colored races, and with many white immigrants 
from Russia, Hungary, Turkey, Austria, etc. Over 



134 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

all of these the negro possesses, in addition, the ad- 
vantage of being a native, in regard to the other terms 
of admission to citizenship. This law would prove 
a powerful stimulus to the negro to strive for educa- 
tion and progress ; it would be the most practical lever 
for his advancement that can be devised. 

All sting or animosity, partiality, injustice or offen- 
sive insinuation of inferiority would be absent in the 
operation of this law because of its general application 
to all, white or colored. It would immediately estab- 
lish the full political equality of all those negroes pos- 
sessing the new electoral qualifications on an indisput- 
able footing, and raise their prestige and influence for 
good among their own people. With this reform 
effected, the social slide of the negro question would 
be greatly simplified because of the removal of un- 
warranted pretensions and the definite settlement of 
his political status on a basis which the whole South 
could accept and loyally enforce. In other respects 
the social side would settle itself on lines of human 
nature traits and affinities, aided by the gradual physi- 
cal and moral improvement of the Negro race, which 
is bound to come. 

In regard to other colored races and also to those 
peoples of the white race to whom objection is, at 
times, raised on the grounds of physical peculiarities,, 
personal habits, religious and moral standards, it is 
plain that we can not, in principle, deny citizenship to> 
them if we accord it to the negro. They are not any 
more peculiar or objectionable from any point of view r 
but we are less familiar with them, less accustomed to 
their characteristics ; and this is further accentuated, 
in regard to many, by the difference in language. But 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 135 

if we are, or purpose to be, on the above grounds or 
any other, opposed to the further continuance of the 
amalgamation of races now going on in our country, 
on apprehensions of physical, intellectual or moral de- 
terioration to our people as now constituted, or of 
destructive political consequences possible therefrom, 
we must face the issue squarely, declare our position 
frankly, treat them all alike, admit to or exclude them 
all from citizenship on equal terms. 

The writer believes that, while the many objection- 
able features connected with the amalgamation have 
produced a strong popular sentiment against it, it is a 
sentiment for greater restriction, rather, than for entire 
exclusion. The latter idea is felt to be too radically 
opposed to our political declarations and also, to quite 
an appreciable extent, against our economic interests. 
Having the negro with us, having admitted the for- 
eigner of all races with few restrictions so far, we can 
not now begin to wholly exclude him. 

But a halt is now emphatically demanded, by senti- 
ment and prudence as well, in this inward rush of 
aliens, to give the Nation the opportunity to properly 
amalgamate and Americanize the racial material now 
on hand. We must enact broad restrictive measures of 
admission, with equal terms to all races and peoples, 
in order to disarm criticism and ill-feeling. It would, 
indeed, be a difficult task to make a just discrimina- 
tion of relative advantage or injury to us of the differ- 
ent peoples that daily come into our country ; and from 
the international point of view it might be fraught with 
dangers to our peace and well-being. 

First, we must absolutely exclude all dangerous 
criminals, political conspirators, anarchists and other 



136 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

enemies of social order, all cripples, the insane and the 
idiotic ; all confirmed consumptives and those afflicted 
with any other permanent contagious or infectious' dis- 
ease ; all paupers and others who, from any cause what- 
ever, could become public charges to us. The present 
National and State immigration laws require to be 
strengthened wherever necessary to realize this pro- 
gram. Second, we must enact new and special restric- 
tions to reduce the volume of immigration and improve 
its social and economic quality by instituting an educa- 
tional test and a head-tax or "capitation" of admission. 
The educational test should cover, at least, the element- 
ary subjects, reading, writing and simple arithmetic 
from all those countries which have a public school sys- 
tem in force. From all others there should be exacted 
some effective test of ordinary intelligence, and the 
practical knowledge of some regular trade or occupa- 
tion. 

The capitation tax for all male persons from fifteen 
years to thirty years of completed age might be $20, 
and above that age $25 ; for females the tax to be $15 
and $20 respectively. Persons under fifteen years of 
age should be entirely exempt, so as not to discrimi- 
nate unjustly against families arriving with children 
of minor age. This tax is suggested to be an absolute 
forfeit to the State of entry and the United States 
Government, to be apportioned between them in some 
definite relation ; the tax to be collectable at every 
separate entry of any such alien person. The effect 
of such a head-tax, while rot prohibitive of admission 
in principle, would work to the entire exclusion o\ 
many wholly undesirable persons ; and in its general 
results would tend to reduce immigration to more 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 137 

acceptable proportions, and to raise its physical and 
social calibre. 



On the question of Woman Suffrage the Author has, 
in a previous argument, deduced its inherent right and 
justice from general and incontrovertible principles. 
This subject has been so generally debated in the 
United States, and so much progress has been made in' 
its favorable consideration by the people, that much 
argument is scarcely needed in its support. That 
women in all ranks of life are, on the average, as in- 
telligent, sensible and patriotic as men in the same 
ranks cannot be disputed ; that they are morally better, 
more abhorrent of vice, crime, violence, disorder, dis- 
honesty and intemperance ; that they are more re- 
ligious, more sympathetic towards the suffering and 
the unfortunate than men, not individually but as a 
class, is equally indisputable. Why, then, should they 
not vote, what are the objections urged? 

It is maintained that women, also not individually 
but as a class, have less general interest than men in 
public affairs, due to their domestic position which 
limits their horizon and opportunities ; that, hence , 
their information on these subjects will be fitful and 
fragmentary, making their comprehension of difficult 
economic and foreign-policy questions doubtful ; that 
they are too sentimental and emotional in their natures 
for practical politics, liable to be easily influenced by 
others and guided by irrelevant motives. It is urged, 
further, that the element of sex would introduce a dan- 
gerous and corrupting factor into politics ; that women 
should for other reasons not be exposed to the rough- 



138 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

and-tumble practices of electioneering, and the debas- 
ing associations of low-grade politicians ; and, lastly, 
that they should, and now have ample opportunity to 
exercise their opinions and influence through their hus- 
bands and brothers. 

The answer to all these points is that many of them 
are both true and well-meant, implying no disparage- 
ment or disrespect to women, but that on the whole 
they are not strong enough to nullify a natural right; 
that others are based on unbounded fears and tempera- 
mental prejudices ; that some are a damaging arraign- 
ment of men and their ways in politics. Many of these 
arguments will fall to the ground from the fact that 
women will not be compelled to vote, any more than 
men are. Those who feel that politics do not interest 
them, or who feel that they cannot grasp the subjects 
for want of time, information or ability, will not be 
disturbed in their right to ignore them. Those who 
shrink, from their natural womanly modesty, to mix 
actively in politics and go to the voting bocth, can 
continue to exert their opinions, as heretofore, in the 
quiet precinct of the home, and no one will complain. 

Others of the hostile arguments spring from the 
fact that this right is now in most States a subject of 
dispute, or still a novelty where already conceded. In 
the heat of contention visionary, even insulting and 
defamatory objections are brought which have no foun- 
dation in fact or probability. The Author, further, be- 
lieves that no influence or practices detrimental to the 
morals or sexual relationships of society will ensue 
from allowing women to vote. There is no evidence 
of such a tendency in those States in which women 
now vote. The proposition is not only insulting to 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 139- 

both sides of the controversy, but intrinsically absurd,, 
as well. 

No argument ever has or can be maintained against 
the right of women as free human beings to vote, in 
a democratic State based on liberty, and +he equality 
of The People. Women are producers and tax-payers,. 
directly or indirectly. Many take as deep an interest 
in public affairs as men and should be accorded, by 
law, the right which is theirs by nature and practical 
facts, to express their opinions on City, State and Na- 
tional politics. They are not unlikely to make fewer 
mistakes of judgment, and to be more conscientious, 
honest and independent about the exercise of the vote, 
than men have proven themselves to be. 

Whether, in actual practice, a very large proportion 
of women citizens would avail themselves of the vote 
is an open question, but this consideration should in 
nowise be allowed as an argument against the rights 
and wishes of those who desire the vote. The propo- 
ganda which the women of keener interest in the mat- 
ter will make among their more apathetic sisters, will 
gradually extend the field of active participation in a 
way wholly normal and satisfactory. There is every 
reason to believe that the woman-vote will prove a 
benefit to the best interests of the country, especially 
in connection with the reforms of the franchise herein 
proposed. 

As to the qualification for woman citizenship it 
should consist of the same general and politico-educa- 
tional requirements and moral character test proposed 
for men, and should apply equally to married and 
single women. But in regard to age of admittance a 
different rule appears desirable ; it should not be less 



140 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

than thirty years for women, as previously stated. The 
reasons for advocating this special rule are, that their 
early careers in life are so generally devoted to social 
and domestic pursuits and interests, to courtship, mar- 
riage, the absorbing duties of motherhood and the fam- 
ily life in general, that their sympathies will, with rare 
and negligeable exceptions, remain indifferent to the 
topics of politics and administration. And where the 
sympathies and the natural interest are lacking, there 
will be no proper inquiry and formation of judgment, 
and can be no useful action. 

It is undeniably true that there is an essential differ- 
ence between the male and the female mind. It is 
not a matter of pure intelligence or reasoning powers, 
but of the perceptive point of view from which life in 
general is regarded. Women are often more keen and 
intuitive than men, but also less logical and less cer- 
tain of their ground. Their practical intelligence 
arrives often earlier, their analytical reasoning power 
generally later than those of men ; it is the latter kind 
that is needed in politics. With young women, especi- 
ally, a certain degree of ingenuous frivolity and super- 
ficiality seems inseparable from their characters ; it 
is nature's exaction for purposes of her own, well 
understood and alike beyond our cavil and control. 
Thus, by common observation, the mental responsi- 
bility of women and their interest in public affairs 
mature at a later period than with men. This is the 
only, but the writer believes a sufficient reason for the 
suggested advance of the age qualification of women 
over that of men. 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 141 

There remain, now, but to establish the terms of 
''naturalization," or citizenship for all male and female 
aliens, white or colored, now resident in, or hereafter 
admitted to the United States. In a previous chapter 
there was pointed out some of the political and social 
misconceptions with which foreigners arriving here are 
liable to be afflicted, and the easy prey they fall to 
socialistic agitators. Years of observation of the for- 
eigner's course of development in the United States 
has clearly established the fact that the present five- 
year term for becoming naturalized does not afford 
sufficient time, in the majority of cases, to produce the 
necessary metamorphosis in them to make them fit 
and acceptable as free citizens of a Republic. 

Their first struggle here is, naturally, for existence. 
This engrosses their entire attention for several years 
before something like settled conditions are reached. 
It also takes them several years to grow out of the 
conceptions of government and social order under 
which they had lived in their native lands. Then, 
there is the new language, which most have to learn,, 
and with which many struggle for years before they 
succeed in acquiring a working acquaintance with it. 

How can these men and women, many in middle life,, 
thus pre-occupied and slowly feeling their way in a 
country where everything is strange to them, in the 
short space of five years obtain any kind of satisfactory 
understanding of our plan of government and institu- 
tions? It is an impossibility! Many never attain to 
any correct ideas about them at all ; many never learn 
to speak the language or to read English. They de- 
pend on their own people and newspapers for infor- 
mation, and receive all their knowledge of this country 



143 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

through indirect and, frequently, biased channels. 
Nevertheless, most of them become citizens as soon 
as they can comply with the present terms of admis- 
sion ; if not of their own volition and interest, then 
through some one else who is interested. They are 
taken charge of by some kind mentor, and become at- 
tached to one or the other of the regular political 
parties. They vote as they are told to vote, and be- 
lieve they are doing their political duty fully; they 
are the victims and innocent culprits of an abominable 
system. It is sad to say, however, that in their way of 
voting and being citizens these foreigners do not differ 
so very much from many of our native American 
voters. The Author has witnessed scenes and acts of 
corruption and fraud in this connection, from the large 
•city to the smallest hamlets, to bring tears of rage and 
shame to the eyes of an honest man. 

Undoubtedly, then, it takes the foreigner many more 
than five years to grow into our ways and civilization, 
to seize the genius of our institutions, to form inde- 
pendent ideas of his own about our government, and 
some settled opinions on political needs. In the 
opinion of many it would not be too much to demand 
a ten years' residence in the country as a primary 
qualification for citizenship from all aliens, male and 
female, and a continuous residence of two years there- 
of in the State in which application is made, and of 
;six months in the election district of the voter. In 
addition, all the general tests as to age, education, poli- 
tical information and moral character, which are de- 
manded as necessary from the native voter, must like- 
wise apply to the alien candidate for the franchise. 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 143 

The idea of a Property Test, such as formerly ex 
isted in many States as a guaranty of character and 
education, may now be entirely dismissed as one not 
any more desirable or effective in its original pur- 
poses. It has been superceded by education. That is 
the key-note of to-day, education, the great enlight- 
ener, strengthener, purifier of mankind before whom 
not only ignorance and stupidity, but all narrowness 
of views, selfishness of impulse, vice and crime, and 
also poverty, must ultimately vanish. In education, 
therefore, lies our salvation ! From the quickened in- 
telligence and ethical elevation which spring from 
it, and the specific instruction it furnishes, must come 
our political regeneration through the reformed fran- 
chise. 

As all administration must, necessarily, be con- 
ducted through individual officials, political organiza- 
tions and great National parties, our first and deepest 
concern must be the elevation of the character and ca- 
pacity of these men, our agents and servants. This can 
only be accomplished by a more informed and inde- 
pendent, by a better-educated electorate which would 
refuse to be the blind tool of sordid ward and district 
politics ; of "organizations," leaders and "Bosses" of 
questionable objects and coarse methods. 

These professional agencies of political action have, 
unfortunately, become a necessity and cannot be elimi- 
nated ; they are the result of the very conditions of the 
electorate which have been described. They have, to 
a large extent, absorbed the initiative as well as the 
direct responsibility of the individual voter; it is 
through them that the inert and unorganized mass of 
the electorate becomes active. And. since these cor- 



144 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

rupt political "machines" rest directly on the igno- 
rance and indifference of the voters, it is naturally to 
their interest to maintain that condition. 

The point of almost greatest importance in this en- 
tire subject lies in its relation to the socialistic labor 
propaganda which has been previously described, and 
which is rapidly ensnaring large sections of the work- 
ing population of the country. It is drawing them 
away from the principles of our government and set- 
ting up beore them visions of a new social and politi- 
cal order. Here is a situation of the gravest public 
danger to which we cannot shut our eyes ; we must 
face the fact and grapple with the problems it sets be- 
fore us. How else can we combat these tendencies but 
by general and political education of the individual 
man ; how else can we repress the growing political in- 
fluence of this party but by restricting the vote 
through insisting on a higher standard for it? 

We must by information appeal to the intelligence 
of the affected sections of the people to convince them 
of the error and cupidity of much of these teachings; 
we must meet them half-way on their own ground in 
all directions in which their views and demands are 
justified and practical of execution. To deny, de- 
nounce and repulse is to fan the flames of disaffection. 

Men must become convinced by argument and 
better information that real progress can only be ac- 
complished on the hand of order; that private rights in 
general and particularly those of property are as sacred 
and inviolable as public rights ; that wages are an 
economic question that cannot be settled arbitrarily. 
Furthermore, that existing institutions are always the 
best avenue of advancing to new positions by way 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 145 

of their judicious reform, rather than by annihilation 
and replacement with untried and problematical 
schemes ; that to tear down is easy, to reconstruct and 
do better very difficult. We must impress them that 
human sympathy is with them, that Society as a whole 
is not antagonistic to the working man ; that our 
democratic institutions, while showing many imperfec- 
tions, are sound in their general doctrine and frame- 
work, and capable of improvement by practical and 
resonable changes. They must, in short, be won back 
to the loyal support of the republic. They must be 
asked to join in the work of reformation and preserva- 
tion by lending their open support to the proposals for 
a restricted franchise, and to the other reforms out- 
lined in this book. 

Even socialists who are serious and honest, and that 
is the majority of them, cannot object to exclusion 
from the franchise of those who are too ignorant and 
disreputable to be worthy of it. The true appeal of 
Socialism is to intelligence and reasoning powers, and 
these must be accompanied by accurate information to 
become a valuable and safe public force. This political 
training will be put within the easy reach of all by the 
proposed free schools of instruction of the voters, and, 
such of them that would be unwilling or incapable of 
making the small effort involved in this, would be 
debarred thereby from citizenship by every rule of 
justice, self-protection and common sense. 

The dissemination of the ideas expounded in 
Chapter B of this book on liberty, equality, self- 
government, property, social divisions, and the elemen- 
tary principles of all government and of this Republic, 
would do much to discountenance unsound theories by 



146 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

their insistence on the fundamental truths of life, 
human nature and orderly development. 



D.— SUMMARY OF THE REFORM PROGRAM. 

The reforms advocated in the preceding pages, and 
also those deprecated are herewith presented in a com- 
pact summary for ready survey as a complete political 
program. 

Constitutional reform of a comprehensive character 
must come. It will doubtless take a few years of agita- 
tion to create a sound public opinion on these ques- 
tions, but this is no subject for precipitate action. Free 
and full discussion will bring out the facts, formulate 
convictions and crystalize them in due time for 
political action. The two great parties, who now seem 
to be parties more of disguise than of real contention, 
will find material here for new and distinct alignment. 

The recommendations are: 

I. — Reform Advocated: 

A.— THE PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE-PRESI- 
DENTIAL TERM :— That the term of office of the 
President and vice-President be changed by amend- 
ment of the "Federal Constitution to a period of six 
years, without direct succession, but not excluding the 
right of re-election at any other time. 

B.— PRESIDENTIAL PENSION :— That every 
President of the United States, honorably retired from 
his office shall, at his option, be entitled to receive from 
the Government an annual pension of ten thousand 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 147 

dollars ; the Congress to pass the necessary law to 
carry this proposal into effect. 

C— AGE-QUALIFICATION :— That the age-quali- 
fication of the President and vice-President be raised 
from 35 to 45 years by Constitutional Amendment. 

D.— AGE-QUALIFICATION OF MALE VOT- 
ERS : — That the age of qualification for the franchise 
of native male citizens, irrespective of race or color, 
shall hereafter be twenty-four years, and the Legis- 
latures of the several States shall enact the required 
Constitutional Amendment and statutory laws to carry 
this proposal into harmonious effect. 

E.— EDUCATIONAL AND CHARACTER- 
TESTS OF VOTERS :— That an educational and 
character-test be hereafter exacted from all native 
male voters, irrespective of race or color, for the 
exercise of the franchise, to wit : 

1. A General Educational Test equal to the com- 
pleted grammar school grade of the public school 
system of the several States. 

2. A Political Information Test consisting of a 
good, practical knowledge of our governmental institu- 
tions and administrations, to be determined in detail 
by proper authority to be appointed for the purpose ; 
and free facilities for its acquirement, by the people 
to be provided in connection with the public school 
system. 

3. A Moral Character Test consisting of a good 
record for law-abiding conduct and peaceable disposi- 
tion, attested by reliable witnesses in the home-district 
of the voter, testimony of employers, or any other 
credible exhibits. 

4. That the Legislatures of the several States shall 



148 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

enact the required Constitutional Amendments and 
statutory laws to carry this proposal into harmonious 
effect. 

F.— WOMAN SUFFRAGE:— i. That the full and 
equal right of women, irrespective of race or color and 
whether married or single, to vote in all elections open 
to men be declared and enacted by amendments to the 
State Constitutions, and by any supplementary statute 
laws required to carry this proposal into harmonious 
effect. 

2. That the age of qualification for the Franchise, of 
native female citizens, shall be thirty years. 

3. That the same tests for education, political in- 
formation and moral character which are prescribed 
for male voters shall apply likewise to female voters. 

G.— ADMISSION OF IMMIGRANTS:— 1. That 
the National and State Immigration Laws be strength- 
ened in all respects where required to effect the ab- 
solute exclusion of all persons justly undesirable 
for admittance to our country on political, moral, 
physical and sanitary grounds, and all those who from 
any cause may become public charges to us. 

2. That all who are adjudged fit for admission shall 
pass an educational test, equal to a common school 
education, from all countries having a free public 
school system in force ; and from others there shall 
be enacted some practical test of sound ordinary in- 
telligence and the knowledge of a regular trade or 
occupation ; failing which the applicants shall be posi- 
tively excluded, but shall have the right to renew 
their application after an interval of three years. 

3. That all those who have passed the described 
educational test shall be admitted to this country on 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 149 

payment of a capitation tax of twenty dollars for all 
male persons of fifteen years to thirty years of com- 
pleted age, and of twenty-five dollars above that 
age ; and of fifteen dollars for all female persons of 
fifteen to thirty years of completed age, and of twenty 
dollars above that age ; persons under fifteen years 
to be entirely exempt. 

4. That the above capitation taxes of admission 
shall be collectable at every separate entry into this 
country of any such alien person who has not pre- 
viously become a citizen. 

5. That the moneys due under the above regulations 
shall be an absolute forfeit, and payable to the properly 
constituted immigration authorities of the State of 
entry, and of the United States, to be apportioned 
between them as shall be determined by law. 

6. That the Congress and the several State Legisla- 
tures enact the necessary Constitutional Amendments 
and supplementary statutory laws required to carry 
these proposals into harmonious effect. 

H.— ALIEN CITIZENSHIP:— 1. That from all 
alien applicants for naturalization and right of the 
Franchise, irrespective of age, color or sex, there shall 
hereafter be exacted as a primary condition for full 
citizenship, a residence in the Linked States of ten 
years, and a continuous residence of two years thereof 
in the State in which application is made, and of six 
months thereof in the election district of the applicant. 

2. That the tests of general education, political in- 
formation, moral character and age, which apply to all 
native candidates for the Franchise shall in like man- 
ner apply to all aliens. 

3. That the Congress and the several State Legisla- 



150 NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 

tures enact the necessary Constitutional Amendments 
and supplementary statutory laws required to carry 
these proposals into harmonious effect. 

I.— CIVIL SERVICE EXTENSION:— i. That the 
Civil Service system of qualification, appointment and 
promotion of the Government, be extended to all offices 
not now under its operation and which are part of the 
permanent routine administration of the country. 

2. That the higher appointive positions not now 
under any or full Civil Service rules and which, by 
established custom, run parallel with the life of an 
administration, shall hereafter be put under full rules 
as to age and qualifications, and be made for the 
definite term of twelve years, with privilege of re- 
appointment ; and the Congress shall pass necessary 
laws to carry this proposal into effect. 

J._ GOVERNORS OF STATES:— i. That the 
term of office of Governors of States shall hereafter be 
for a duration of six years, without re-eligibility in 
direct succession, but not excluding the right of re- 
election at any other time; and The People of the 
several States shall take early, united and uniform 
action on this proposal by the necessary amendment to 
their State Constitution. 

2. That the age-qualification of Governors of States 
be raised at least five years over the present require- 
ment, or uniformly to the age of forty years. 

K.— STATE SENATORS AND ASSEMBLY- 
MEN: — i. That the terms of office of State Senators 
shall hereafter be for a duration of six years and of 
Assemblymen for two years, in all States where they 
now differ from this rule; and The People of the 
several States concerned shall take early, united and 



NATIOXAL EVOLUTION 151 

uniform action on this proposal by the necessary 
amendment of their State Constitutions. 

2. That the age-qualification of State Senators and 
Assemblymen be raised at least five years over the 
present requirements, or uniformly to the age. of thirty- 
five years and thirty years, respectively. 

L.— AGE-QUALIFICATION OF U. S. SENA- 
TORS AND REPRESENTATIVES:— That the 
age-qualification of U. S. Senators be raised from thirty 
years to thirty-five years, and that of U. S. Represen- 
tatives from 25 years to 30 years. 

M.— GENERAL RULE FOR AGE AND TERMS 
OF SERVICE OF ALL OFFICIALS :— That in ad- 
dition to the preceding specific proposals as to age- 
qualification and tenure of office, the same principle of 
increase of both shall be applied as a general rule to 
all the other important public offices in National, State 
and City government. 

X.— STATE JUDICIARY:— That the Justices of 
the Supreme Court system and its Appellate Divisions 
of the several States shall hereafter be appointed on 
good eehavtor, with stated age and pension of retire- 
ment, and the Judges of Inferior Courts for periods of 
twelve years, with privilege of re-appointment ; these 
appointments to be made by the Governors of the 
States with the concurrence of the State Senates ; and 
The People of the several States shall take early, 
united and uniform action on these proposals by the 
necessary amendment of their State Constitutions. 

II. — Reforms Deprecated: 

O.— THE UNITED STATES SENATORSHIP:— 

That the present system of election and apportioning 



152 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

of U. S. Senators, having proven wise and conservative 
to the best interests of the Republic, and in conformity, 
as to effect, with the Constitutional intent of their posi- 
tion in the legislative plan of the Government, all 
agitation of changes of this system be deprecated as in- 
jurious to our political fabric, unsettling to the just 
balance of powers, and inimical to the public welfare. 
P.— THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. 
'• — That in recognition of the dominant pos : tion of this 
Court in our Republic as the interpreter of the Con- 
stitution and the mainstay of the Law, all agitation for 
its modification or abolition, and all disrespectful 
criticism of its decisions, be deprecated and severely 
censured by the loyal sentiment of The People as 
being directed against the bulwark of our political 
institutions, and destructive of all our common in- 
terests. 



E.— POLEMICAL. 

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1908.— 
"SHALL THE PEOPLE RULE?" 

It lies too near to present interests for the Author 
to omit pointing out the relation between his reform 
program and the Platforms, written and implied, of 
the leading political parties for the coming National 
Campaign. The Author is not a partisan in the strict 
sense of the word ; nor is this Concluding Chapter in- 
tended as an interested party-argument in relation to 
the present campaign. The pros and cons of the ques- 
tions of the hour will be fully discussed by their 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 153 

respective adherents, and none need go without the 
necessary information to form their judgment. What 
is desirable to be investigated is the general tendency, 
the "formative trend" of the two leading political 
parties at the present time, as revealed by their Plat- 
forms, and what is the position they may be expected 
to assume towards the Constitutional reforms sub- 
mitted in this book. 

The secondary political parties (numerically), who 
have issued Platforms and named candidates, i. e., the- 
Independence Party, Pejple's Party. Socialist and 
Socialist Labor Parties and the Temperance Party are 
all political organizations entitled to the higher con- 
sideration and respect, on general principles. But they 
are numerically too small as independent political fac- 
tors to hope, with any reason, to achieve the success of 
their tickets ; they are important more for the ideas 
they represent and for the way in which they will 
affect the relative strength of the Democratic and 
Republican Parties. 

In examing the Platforms of the two latter we are 
at first glance struck by their identity of general declar- 
ations. They differ more in degree and manner of 
application than in fundamental aims ; there are but 
few really distinct issues between them. And yet, this 
difference in the manner and degree of doing the same 
or a very similar thing is very vital ; it discloses the 
point of view and the spirit which animates the 
thought, it announces the political trend for the future. 
The difference in this spirit and trend is measured 
chiefly by the attitude of the two parties towards 
Labor and Socialism. 

The Republican Party still shows itself the party 



154 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

of conservatism joined to progress on cautious lines, 
of a steady but circumspect advance on the tried and 
successful principles of the past. All the efforts of 
Labor leaders and Socialists at the Chicago convention 
did not succeed to bring out a very strong declaration 
on the Labor measures demanded, or on the modifica- 
tion of the Injunction Practice, or on guaranty of Bank 
deposits, Income Tax and other so-called "Peoples* 
Measures." On the other hand, at the Democratic 
Convention these policies were very liberally endorsed 
and incorporated in the Party-Platform. On other 
matters also, particularly on the reduction of the tariff 
on imports, the regulation of trusts, and economy in 
government expenditures the Democratic Declarations 
are fairly precise and positive while those of the 
Republicans are more tentative and undefined. 

This does not say that the Republican Party would 
not enact wise and effective measures in these direc- 
tions, but it does say that they will not commit them- 
selves too specifically in their Platform as to "just 
what and how" they would do. It shows the sense 
of caution, of responsibility, the Conservative instinct 
inherent in a good proportion of mankind. Here is the 
real, the positive dividing line between the two parties ; 
for, the Democrats have steadily progressed, since 
1896, towards the advanced ideas of Populists, Labor 
leaders and Socialists. Every platform since that time 
has been more "liberal" than the preceding one; they 
can, logically, only advance, not recede on this course: 
They must soon cross the Rubicon. In this steady 
progress towards "Radicalism'' the Democrats have 
been ingeniously assisted by the Republican Party, 
which has "cut the feet" from under much of the 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 155 

original Democratic policies by adopting a moderate 
form of several of them. And the Democrats them- 
selves have, with rather less conscious ingenuity,, 
greatly weakened their most vital issue of "States 
Rights" by advocating, even more strenuously than the 
Republicans, the Federal regulation of railroads and 
trusts, and other policies inevitably "centralizing" in 
their tendency. 

The Labor movement, generally and politically, has 
grown by leaps and bounds since 1896, likewise the 
Populists' or Peoples' Party in the Southwestern 
States, likewise all the factions of the straight 
Socialists' Party and of the Socialist Labor Party. As 
to the latest one of all, the Independence Party of this 
campaign, it represents in its general principles the 
ideas and "popular" aims of the ones just named. It 
is the growth of these outspokenly radical parties, all 
of which take votes away from the Democrats especial- 
ly, joined to the other weakening factors, that has 
drawn that party towards them and will now irresis- 
tibly compel them to be drawn to it, by a species of 
political gravitation. It is an inevitable process dic- 
tated by a conjunction of principles and aims, the 
natural self-interest for success and power and the 
attendant benefits of office. L T nited they may win the 
double prize, divided scarcely. 

This, then, in the Author's opinion, is the new 
political alignment coming in the very near future: 
The Republican Party will draw all the conservative 
elements of society to its side and form, or be, the 
National Conservative Party, constructively pro- 
gressive, but aiming rather at the perfecting of the 
details of Constitutional practice than the abandon- 



156 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

ment of its spirit, recognizing the pressure of new 
conditions of life and work, but willing to go only 
slowly towards the adoption of State socialistic doc- 
trines ; the Democratic Party, enlarged by the acces- 
sion of all the radical and socialistic elements of 
society, will become transformed into the great new 
"People's Party," and proceed to the realization of a 
systematic program of paternally-fostering and pro- 
tective measures of government. These must lead to 
general collectivism. State and Fedaral ownership of 
railroads, changes in Court authority, the reduction of 
-States Rights and the general departure of the Re- 
public from the plan contemplated by the Constitution. 

The course here predicted for the Democratic Party 
will be the same whether they shall win or lose in the 
coming Presidential election. If they succeed, it will 
be a powerful inducement for the smaller opposiion 
parties to join the victor for immediate and future 
advantages ; if they lose it will be a like strong incen- 
tive for all these related elements to "get together" 
for the next onslaught, to make sure of victory then. 

We may now approach the question as to what is 
likely to be the attitude of these two great future politi- 
cal parties towards the Author's Program of Reform 
and Development for the Republic. The answer is 
simple. The most trenchant parts of the recommenda- 
tions are four: I. The changes in the Franchise, in- 
cluding immigration rules and alien citizenship; II. 
the maintenance of the present electoral character of 
the U. S. Senator; III. the change of the elective 
character of the State Judiciary to appointive, with in- 
crease of office tenure ; and IV. the maintenance of 
the present status and inviolability of the U. S. 



NATIONAL EVOLUTION 157 

Supreme Court. As to other counts, i. e., the various 
proposals on tenure of office, re-eligibility, age- 
standard of officials and Civil Service extension, the 
feeling of both parties, at present, does not differ much. 

Against the above four fundamental propositions the 
Democratic Party is even now committed by its self- 
interest and record, and will be so more completely 
in its future character. The proposed new qualifica- 
tions for voters would probably affect 20 per cent, of 
the present electorate, or in round numbers close to 
3,000,000 voters. Of these about one-half would be 
.only temporarily affected for such a length of time as 
those concerned would need to reach the qualifications 
demanded. The other half, or about 1.500,000 voters 
would be permanently cut off as being unable from 
one reason or another, to reach the new standard. 

It is plain from the inherent character of the two 
parties that, both in regard to the transient and the 
permanent effect, the Democratic Party would be by 
far the heaviest loser in the operation, even allowing 
for a proportionately larger effect of negro exclusion 
upon the Republican Party. Thus, both from principle,. 
as priding itself per se of being the friend of the masses,, 
of the poor man compared with the rich, the working 
man with the capitalist, as from self-protection against 
a substantial loss of voters the Democratic Party could 
not be expected to favor the proposed franchise 
changes. It will stamp them, more likely, as an at- 
tempt upon the Peoples' Rights. 

Concerning the U. S. Senatorship and the U. S. 
Supreme Court this party is on record since 1896 for 
the popular election of Senators, and for extensive 
modification of the status and powers of the Supreme 



153 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

Court. And in regard to changing the character of the 
State Judiciary, the tentative proposals made so far on 
this subject have never met with a responsive echo 
from the Democratic side of the people. Every sug- 
gestion involving a restriction of the Franchise is treat- 
ed by this party as a violation of the inalienable rights 
of citizens. That the whole character and practice of 
the Franchise has completely changed, deteriorated 
and departed from its original conception has not yet 
occurred to them. 

When we weigh the import of the above historical 
statement in connection with the general record of the 
Democratic Party, since 1896, in its tseady drifting 
towards radicalism, towards a radical coalition-party, 
we find it but natural that this transformation should 
be accompanied by a steady process of internal disin- 
tegration, of elimination of its conservative elements. 
This is an undisputable fact, the process is going on 
now in spite of the apparent enthusiasm and unity of 
purpose at the Denver Convention and in this cam- 
paign, so far. The exact sentiments of the voters and 
the internal condition of a party are not always re- 
flected by such apparently favorable outward signs. 

Let us look at the cold facts. We know beyond a 
doubt that in 1896 a large section of conservative and 
level-headed business-men withdrew from the Demo- 
cratic Party because of its ludicrous free-silver policy. 
Others withdrew because of the declarations on the 
U. S. Supreme Court ; others because of the generally 
populistic program of that platform. Few of these 
have found their way back to the fold, while others 
have left since for reasons of the generally vacillating 
and unsound conduct of the party and its leaders. The 



XATIOXAL EVOLUTION 159 

drift is too plain to be ignored or mistaken. The con- 
servative Democratic elements, long held to allegiance 
by feelings of tradition rather than of conviction, 
and grievously disappointed by the party's new ten- 
dencies and associations, are finding their way into 
the Republican ranks. This process of affinitive asso- 
ciation, politically, will become more acute from year 
to year until the complete transformation and re-align- 
ment, as previously sketched, is accomplisbhed. 

In the present Democratic Platform all these ten- 
dencies are unconsciously revealed by the summing up 
of the party's bid for power in the ringing phrase: 
''Shall the People Rule?" It is a happily chosen cam- 
paign slogan to fortify the party's followers and to 
win outside votes. But, as used it conveys the insinua- 
tion that The People do not now rule, that they are 
bsing ruled, or are imminently threatened with that 
condition. This political maneuvre is both false in 
fact and wrong in ethics. The People rule now and 
always shall rule in this Republic ; they shall fully 
rule under the Author's reform program. The ques- 
tion of absorbing concern is not the unnecessary one 
"Shall The People Rule-" but the needful, vital one 
"Who are The People?" or, better still. "Who were 
The People that shall rule originally meant to be?" 

Should the People who are to gevern this country 
not be, in theory and in fact, the body of intelligent, 
properly informed, law-abiding and patriotic citizens, 
unencumbered by the incapable, ignorant, indifferent 
and vicious elements of society, the raw foreigner, the 
half-civilized native? Instead of these should this 
body of citizens worthy of the Franchise not rather in- 
clude the flower of our well-educated and bright 



160 NATIONAL EVOLUTION 

womanhood ? This momentous question of the crea- 
tion of a Competent and Responsible People, politi- 
cally, is propounded and answered in detail in this 
book, and is the foremost one on which the two future 
political parties must make issue, on which they will 
radically divide. 

Turning, now, to the "REPUBLICAN PARTY" we 
feel instinctively that it is the one destined to take up 
the Author's reform program ; it is the party com- 
mitted to a conservative, orderly and scientific develop- 
ment of the Republic. It must, therefore, in due time, 
welcome the proposals for restricting, purifying and 
elevating the Franchise as the one measure above all 
others to raise up the country to a new epoch of sound 
political progress. All the other recommendations of 
the Author fall in naturally with the conservatively 
progressive aims and character of this party. On the 
questions of the U. S. Senatorship and U. S. Supreme 
Court the Republican Party is pledged to their preser- 
vation on the plan of the Constitution; on the subject 
of the State Judiciary it has shown a favorable attitude. 

Furthermore, it is the Author's opinion that this 
party in its new National garb and mission will, after 
the successful enactment of the measures advocated in 
this Campaign, proceed not alone to purify the elec- 
torate, raise the tenure of office, expunge re-eligibility, 
strengthen the Civil Service and re-establish the pres- 
tige of the Courts, but will also be the one to enact 
necessary measures of a practical and desirable social- 
istic character for the improvement of the position of 
the hard-working and less fortunately situated brother- 
man, on the general ideas evolved in this book, and 
in safety to the continued existence and progress of 
our institutions. 



oct 13 isoa 




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